t^f^^ -"^s>f. 






t 



Class ^_(^8_f7-_ 






MASON AND DIXON'S LINE: 



/6'V 
A. HISTORY. "T^i^- 



INCLUDING AN OUTLINE OF THE 



^oHiibarj Contro&mj \thm lennsglframa anb f irginia. 



BY 

JAMES VEECH. 



"I'll give thrice so much land to any well deserving friend; 
But, in the way of bargain, mark ye me, 
I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair." 

aoTSFua. 




PITTSBURGH: 
W. 8. HAVEN, CORNER OF MARKET A SECOND STREETS 

1857. 



'31 A 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 

W. S. HAVEN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Western District 

of Pennsylvania. 



PREFACE 



There are references — to nay nothing of defects — in both the text and notes of the 
following pages, which require a word of explanation. 

The sketch, here given in a separate fona, constitutes a chapter in a work now in 
press, entitled "The Monoj'Gahela of Old; or, Jlistorkal Skftches of South-western 
Pennsylvania, to the year 1800 ; with special reference to Fayette County, .j-c." in the 
preparation of which the author has been engaged for the past two years. ) Some history 
of Mason and Dixon's Line, upon which Fayette county, in common with her sisters of 
the southern tier, rests, came necessarily within the scope of the work. To give to the 
subject its rightful measure of prominence and elucidation, called for a more extended 
range of research, both as to time and territory, than pertains to most of the other 
sketches. Indeed, the most important of the events and intricacies which compose its 
history are associated with localities which lie beyond the limits of South-western 
Pennsylvania. It was, therefore, suggested by a few friends, to whom the MSS. and 
proof sheets of the chapter were submitted, that I ouglit to re-produce it as a distinct 
treatise, adapted to the general reader. To do this would require tlie expurgation of 
many pas.sages which are the result of the "special reference" sought to be given to 
the entire work ; and the incorporation of some of the illustrative statements found in 
others of the sketches, and which are referred to, not only in somo of tlie notes, but 
sometimes in the text. I did not deem tlie article of sufficient importfince to bestow 
upon it this increased labor of re-construction. I yielded to the suggestion so far only 
as, while the "forms" were up, to procure a few extra copies to bo printed, without 
any other alterations than in the paging and head lines. This is my apology for what, 
without it, would be unintelligible interpolations and deficiencies. 

To give to the article a little more of the unity of a distinct treatise, I have appended 

a few pages relating to the "boundary controversy" with Virginia, which resulted in 

the establishment of the western end of the line, and the western boundary of I'enn- 

' eylvania — a subject which holds the key to almost every department of the liistory of 

the south-western part of tiie State. 

It will readily be seen that the accompanying outline Map was designed to illustrate 
both of these boundary disputes. 



IV PEEFACE. 

If this unpretending effort to obtrude what some will regard as an effete, and 

what really is an almost forgotten subject, upon the public attention, be challenged with 

the inquiry — Cui bono ? I answer, that I admit it does not come within the Baconian 

rules which have, perhaps, too much control over modern "progress." But I know of 

no more interesting, if not profitable field of historic research than that which takes in 

the boundary conformations of the several States of our Union, especially the Old 

Thirteen. We abound in histories, of varied merit — colonial, national, State, local, civil, 

political, naval and military ; and in very satisfactory treatises upon our geography, 

descriptive and physical ; but we are singularly deficient in what may not inaptly be 

termed our Historical Geography. The neglect of this department of research is the 

more to be wondered at and regretted, because of its intimate blendings with, and 

elucidations of, all our other history, civil, political, social and religious. If my little 

labors upon this large field shall have served, in any degree, to incite to a demand 

for more thorough cultivation, my ambition will be fully Bated. 

J. V. 
Uniontown, Pa., September 1, 1857. 



MASOI AID DIIOI'S LINE 



Its peculiarities — 36° 30'' — Slavery — Colonial Titles — New IJngland and Virginia at 40° 
— The Dutch Dynasty — Delaware bora at -Swaanendael — Maryland granted-^The 
Swedes — The Dutch conquer them — The Duke of York conquers the Dutch — His 
Domains — William Peun — Pennsylvania granted — Where was 40° — Disputes with Lord ' 
Baltimore begin — Penn buys Delaware — Boundary Negotiatio-ns — The King halves the 
Peninsula — Delaware stands alone — Death and Character of Penn — New Lords — Con- 
cordat of 1723 — Agreement of 1732 — Boundaries agreed upon — Strife. renewed — Par- 
ties go into Chancery — Quibbling — Border Feuds — Cresap — Temporary Line — Lord 
Harwicke's Decrees — Final Agreement of. July '4, 17G0— Gains and Losses of the 
Parties — Retributive Justice — Pennsylvania ahead — Connecticut controversy — The 
Lines run — Mason and Dixon — Lines aroudd Delaware — The Great Due-West Line — 
Slow progress — Indians about — Halt at the War-path — Xhe Confer Cairn — How the 
Line was marked — The Visto — Instruments used — Measurements — New Troubles — All 
quiet — Distances and Localities — Re-tracings in 1819 — Ei'rors and Certainties — Muta- 
tions of Boundary and Empire — Is the History of the Line ended ? Not yet. 

The southern boundary of Pennsylvania exhibits several striking 
peculiarities. Its eastern end consists of a considerable arc of a 
circle, which, springing from the river Delaware, Connects itself 
with the latitudinal part of the line 'By a deep, sharp indentation, 
or notch, so as to resemble what in architecture is called a bead. 
From the initial point of the latitudinal line, near the circle, it 
stretches away to the west, through field and forest; intent* only 
upon preserving its course, without being deflected by either the 
channel of a river or the crest of a mountain. Climbing obliquely 
the summit of the Alleghenies, it turns its back upon the fountains 
which feed the Atlantic ; and, rushing down into the Ohio Valley, 
stoops in its pathway to drink of the crystal waters of the Y'ough- 
iogheny. Rising refreshed, and with its eye still fixed to the West, 
it hurries on, regardless of the intersecting linb of a sister sover- 
eignty ; and, stalking across the Cheat and the Monongahda, stops 
amid the Fish creek hills, within half a day's journey of the river 
Ohio ; as if exhausted by the rugged route it has traversed, and 
unable to reach that great natural boundary, recognized by every 
other State than Pennsylvania which its current laves. 

Upon a closer inspection it will be seen that it is equally regard- 
less of the established lines of admeasurement upon the earth's 
2 



6 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

surface ; conforming to neitter of the limits of a degree of latitude, 
nor to any of its easily-comprehended parts; and this, without being 
forced into its anomalous position by any object, or obstacle of 
nature. For at neither end does it terminate, nor in any part of 
its extended ct>urse does it touch, upon any prominent natural 
landmark. It is wholly, in every part, and in all its forms, an arti- 
ficial, arbitrary line, without a model, or a fellow upon the conti- 
nent.^ And yet it is perhaps more unalterable than if nature had 
made it : for it limits the sovereignty of four States, each of whom 
is as tenacious of its peculiar systems of law as of its soil. "It is 
the boundary of empire. 

Whence came these peculiarities — this palpable disregard of the 
plain provisions of nature and science for the divisions of do- 
minion ? Is this singular line the result of compulsion, or of compact 
— of noisy strife, or of quiet agreement ? How old is it — what its 
ancestry — whence its name? These, with many other curious 
questions which spring from the subject, take hold upon the past, 
and find their solution only in history. Strange subject, too, for 
history, is a line, defined to be "length, without breadth or thick- 
ness." Yet this line has a history of a hundred years' duration, 
spreading out over more than half the old thirteen States, and 
sinking deep into the very foundations of their beiiig. It abounds 
in curious conflict of grant and construction, in bold encroachments 
upon vested rights, in artful remedies for inconvenient limitations. 
Kings, lords and commoners, English, Swedes and Dutch, Quakers 
and Catholics, figure conspicuously in the narrative, with dramatic 
eflect. Upon much of the disputed margins of the line have been 
enacted scenes of riot, invasion, and even murder; which want only 
the fanciful pen of a Scott or an Irving to develop their romantic 



1 In some respects, the celebrated 36° SO^^ resembles Mason and Dixon's Line ; with 
■which pulitical writers and declaimers sometifnes confound it. But it has neither the 
beauty, the accuracy, »nor the historic interest of our line? It is, or rather was intended 
to be, the southeA boundary of the Statesof 'Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri ; but it 
has been most bunglingly run, as a glance at a United States map will show. Begin- 
ning correctly, on the Atlantic, at Currituck inlet, by the time it gets to the western 
confine of North Carolina — to which it was run before the Revolution-^it is some two 
miles to the south. Its extension was resumed in 1779-80 ; and after correcting the 
first error the surveyors run into a greater one, for at the Tennessee riyer they are 
some ten or twelve miles too far to the north. When afterwards extended to the south- 
west corner-'Of Missouri,'the surveyors drop down to the true 36° SO', and riin it" out 
truly ; except the deviatiou, west of the Mississippi, to take in the New Madi'id settle- 
ment. West of the south-west corner of Missouri, this line of 36° 30^ has a history 
which it is too soon yet to write. 



SLAVERY. I 

interest. In the strife and negotiations which led to its establish- 
ment,- endurance and evasion were put to their highest tests: in 
tracing it, science achieved one of its most arduous labors. In in- 
tricacy and interest, if not in importance, the subject is inferior to 
none in American history. 'We regret that we can give to it here 
only a condensed exposition. That which, without undue expan- 
sion, could fill a volume, must here be limited to a brief statement 
of why, when and how the line was established, accompanied only 
by such illustrative details as have interest to us who stand upon its 
western end. It will be seen also that the subject is an indispensa- 
ble preliminary to the boundary controversy with Virginia, to 
which we will introduce the reader in our next chapter. And 
although the two subjects are as inseparable as the lines to which 
they relate, they are sufficiently distinct to allow them to be sep- 
arately considered. We take up the oldest fiust. 

Some inconsiderate reader may be disposed to turn away in 
disgust from a further perusal of this sketch, upon the assumption 
that Mason and Dixon's Line can have no other history than a di- 
atribe upon the stale subject of slavery. To give instant relief to 
such an one, we promise to say not one word upon that subject. 
Historically, the line has nothing to do with human bondage. True, 
in the course of human events it has come to pass that it has long 
been the limit, to the northward, of the " peculiar institution ;" and 
were it not that the "pan-handle," like an upheaval of schist through 
a stratum of free old red sand-stone, mars its continuity, it would, 
by direct connection with the' Ohio, form, with it, an unbroken 
barrier to the desolations^ of slave labor, from the Delaware to the 



2 We use this term in no harsh or political sense. Except in the culture of the j^reat 
Southern staples of cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco, slaveholders themselves regard 
slave labor as unprofitable, and mourn over its desolations. Wasteful and imperfect 
tillage and depreciation of intelligent white labor, are its unavoidable tendencies. Hence 
the Southern avidity for new lands in th^ "West, wherein to plant the "institution." 
Experience has shown that outside appeals and arguments, drawn from the right and 
wrong of the "relation," will never sever the South from slavery. Nor will climate effect 
the cure. Interest — loss and gain, are the great solvents before which it will crumble 
and dissolve. Whenever it can acquire no more virgin soil upon which to spread itself — 
whenever its peculiar staples can be as well produced by free labor, or find substitutes in 
the products of free white labor — then will slaveholders become the advocates of " abo- 
lition." Until then, the policy of the North is to let them alone ; and firmly, but kindly, 
to resist any further enlargement of their territorial or political dominion. For they 
seek to acquire and maintain political ascendancy only to preserve and advance their 
interests. Happily, there is yet room enough for all — white and colored, native and 
foreign. Let each have their proper rights and places ; and if we cannot agree, let us 
not quarrel, about their distribution. 



8 MASON AND DIXON S LINE. 

Mississippi. But it was established for no such purpose, and when 
established, negro slavery existed upon both sides of it. That -it 
has ceased to exist on one side and not on the other, are fixed facts, 
attributable to influences which we are not here called to consider. 
We have to treat of transactions that reach further back upon the 
track of time. 

The discovery of America, in 1492, was a great event in the 
annals of human progress. And yet it seems to have come too 
soon; for it required the lapse of another century to render it 
available for any real good to the mass of mankind. In the mean- 
time, however, mind was becoming emancipated, and separate 
portions of the ISTew World were being appropriated'^y the nations 
who were, in due time, to people its wastes. f 

The mode of acquiring title to distinct' parts of the American 
continent by the old European nations, had in it more of form than 
of fact, more of might than of right. It consisted in sending out 
some bold navigator, who, after sailing in sight of some hitherto 
undiscovered coast, or up some bay or riv^, upon wliose surface 
had never before been cast the shadow of a ship, landed upon its 
shores, unfurled the flag under which he sailed, and, with cross in 
hand, devoutly took possession for his country, to the exclusion of 
all other Christian claimants. In this consisted the vaunted Right 
of Prior Discovery — a kind of kingly "squatter sovereignty," or 
national preemption, founded upon a necessity for some limit to 
the land-greed of nations as well as individuals. 

The domain of England in a^Torth America, conferred by the 
prior discoveries in 1497, of John Cabot, and his son Sebastian, 
extended, along the Atlantic coast, from I:^. latitude 58° to 31°, 
or from Labrador to Florida. Her rights to the extreme latitudes 
of this range were, for a while, and very justly, too, disputed by 
France and Spain. She, therefore, wisely postponed asserting her 
rights to these, until after she had firmly seated herself within the 
temperate latitudes of her claim ; which, although more southward 
than her own, were nearly isothermal in temperature, and congenial 
to the physical constitutions and industrial pursuits of her people. 
In due time she w^as thus enabled to crush out the pretensions of 
her rivals; and, in the meantime, to profit by their competition 
with her, and with each other. 

The era of earnest eftbrt in England to colonize America clusters 
within half a century around the year 1600. Other European 
nations awoke to like attempts within the same period and within 
the same latitudes ; some of which will demand our notice in the 



OLD VIRGINIA COMPANIES. 



sequel. We pass over the premature and ill-fated efforts of Ralciirh 
and Gilbert, from 1578 to 1588, under the patronage of Elizabeth ; 
ill-fated because premature, not because ill-desighed, so far as under 
the control of human will. Hence those early efforts were fruitless 
of aught else than disaster and discouragement, save that the}' 
afforded to that haughty queen the privilege of glorifying her 
"cheerless state of single blessedness" by giving the appellation 
of Virginia to the whole qf her American possessions. 

In 1603, Westminster Abbey received the remains of Elizabeth. 
The Tudor dynasty was now ended. Had our colonies been planted 
under their auspices, they would probably have grown into vast 
absolute feudalities. Happily for their fundamental adaptedness 
to become the nurseries of civil and religious*liberty, nearly all 
the Old Thirteen drew their charters from the prodigality, and 
their founders from the oppressed subjects, of the Stuart race of 
kings ;, who were as lavish of their distant domains upon " favorite 
courtiers, or troublesome subjects," as they were tenacious of power 
and prerogative at home. The set time for founding an empire of 
freedom had now come, and they were the appointed agents to 
effect it. Unwittingly, they became sponsors for foundlings, who 
within two centuries rose in independence, as if to avenge their 
dethronement upon the haughty House of Hanover. They gave 
away the soil of half a continent, which it cost them nothing to 
acquire, and with-it the seeds of institutions which "were not the 
offspring of deliberate forethought, which were not planted by the 
hand of man; — they grew like the lilies, which neither toil nor 
spin."^ 

In 1606, King James I. of England, leaving ample margins at 
the North and the South for disputed dominion, granted eleven 
degrees of latitude on the Atlantic— from E". latitude 34*^ to 45", 
or from the southern point of North Carolina to the northern con- 
fines of New York and Vermont, to two companies of corporators ; 
one of which, called the London Company, was to possess the 
South ; the other, called the Plymouth Company, was to possess 
the North ; with an intervening community of territory between 



3 Bancroft. The volnminous History of the United States by tliis eminent statesman 
and scholar, although invaluable for its fullness, richness and general accuracy, is 
lamentably deficient in defining the limits of the ancient colonial grants. Indeed, who- 
ever -wishes, from our most popular standard writers, to compile a boundary history, 
undertakes an arduous and perplexing la»or. Generally, they are meagre, confused and 
conflicting. 



10 MASON AND DIXON's LINE. 

them, from N. latitude 38° to 41°. Virginia was the common 
name to both, but it was soon exclusively appropriated by the 
southern company, which was the most efficient. Under its 
auspices, in 1607, the first enduring English settlement upon the 
continent was planted at Jamestown. Even the Puritan Pilgrims 
who landed from the Mayflower, on Plymouth Rock, in cold 
December, 1620, sailed from Holland under a grant from this 
company. 

In 1609, the same facile king, by a new 6y amended charter, 
greatly enlarged the privileges and territory of the southern com- 
pany. He now gave it a front upon the Atlantic coast of four 
hundred miles, of which Old Point Comfort, the southern cape of 
James river, was to be the halfway point: — "and from the sea- 
coast of the precinct aforesaid up into the land throughout, from 
sea to sea, west and north-west:" — very ample limits, truly. Old 
Point Comfort is nearly upon N. latitude 37°. Hence, at 69i 
miles to a degree, this enlargement had little efi*ect upon the south- 
ern limit of the Old Dominion ; but northwardly, it gave to her 
two degrees of latitude of what had before been common territory, 
and (making due allowance for the coast-line being the base of the 
triangle,) carried her about up to N. latitude 40°. This charter was 
revoked, or annulled, by the king, in 1624; but, except when 
portions of her territory were, by several subsequent grants, con- 
veyed away to other favorites, to become the germs of other States, 
no further change was ever afterwards made in the boundaries of 
Old Virginia. V 

The old North Virginia Company was a rickety, short-lived con- 
cern. It accomplished nothing towards colonization. It, however, 
did one good thing. The southern company having, by maltreat- 
ment, driven from its service its,father and defender, Captain John 
Smith, its northern rival gave him employment, and sent him out 
to explore and map its territory. He had proved his competency 
by having before performed similar labors upon the region around 
the Chesapeake. Having accomplished the work assigned him by 
the Plymouth Company, he returned to England in 1614 ; drew 
out a map and an account of his explorations, which he presented 
to the king's son, Prince Charles, who thereupon named the terri- 
tory New England. Here ended the old North Virginia Company, 
whose territory was from IST. latitude 41° to 45°. 

While the Pilgrim Fathers were on their ocean way from old to 
new Plymouth, in 1620, a new charter was granted by James I. to 
a new corporation, by the name of " The Council established at 



VIRGINIA AND NEW ENGLAND. 11 

Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, order- 
ing and governing of JSTew England in America." Its territory 
was "all that part of America lying in breadth from 40° -to 48° l!^. 
latitude, and in length by all the breadth aforesaid throughout the 
main land, from sea to sea: " — a grant which would have outlimited 
its southern rival, had it not been that, ere this, the French had 
crept in, through the gulf and river St. Lawrence, behind thenl, 
and founded Canada. It, however, became the father of the New 
England States. From it tlte numerous colonics, of which they 
are now ^the aggregates, derived their territorial grants. Their 
charters of privileges and government they obtained directly from 
the throne. These grants were regarded as kind of sub-infeudations, 
carved out of the original grant; 4nd, by 1635, had well nigh 
exhausted it. 'New England, however, was regarded as an entirety 
until after 1632, the year in which Virginia suffered her first dis- 
memberment. 

We have been thus particular in developing the foundations and 
territorial juxtaposition of these two old parent colonies, New 
England and Virginia, for the purpose of determining with precision 
at what point or line they united. The materiality of the inquiry 
will soou be apparent. Manifestly, their common boundary was 
the 40th line of north latitude. There we leave them together in 
peace, resting upon the bosom of Pennsylvania, while we go back 
to trace up the strife we are soon to contemplate. 

Ere yet these two old parent colonies had solemnized their 
nuptials at 40°, in 1609, there sailed from the Texel, in Holland, a 
well appointed ship, commanded by Sir Henry Hudson, an English- 
man then in the employ of the Dutch East India Company. His 
object was to find a north-west passage to China. Dsiven out of 
the arctic inlets by ice and fogs, he turns his prow southward along 
the English- American coast, as far as the Chesapeake. Having 
studied Captain Smith's map of that region, he knew where he 
was. His object was discovery. He again steers northward. 
Keeping more closely to the shore, he discovered the Delaware 
Bay, into which he sailed ; but its flat shores not suiting his taste, 
he repassed its capes without landing. Coasting along the sands 
of New Jersey, he discovered the entrance to the New York 
waters.* He enters and anchors within Sandy Hook. The forests 



* Although Hudson was probably the earliest European discoverer of the Delaware,- 
yet Verrazzani, who sailed under the flag of France, was iu New York harbor before htm, 
in 1524, The Delaware takes its name from Lord Delaware, Governor of the South Vir- 
ginia Colony in 1609, who, it is said, perished off its capes. 



12 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

and slopes of the Nevisink hills were inviting. The natives were 
kind and inquisitive. lie had found the objects of his pursuit. 
Before he left he passed the Narrows, sounded his way up the 
river which now bears his name, beyond the Highlands, and, in a 
boat, went above Albany. Satisfied, he returned to England, and 
reported his discoveries to the Dutch. The next year, while in 
the service of London merchants, seeking the north-west passage, 
he perished in the great northern bay whose name is his only 
monument. 

Holland, or more properly the States General of the United 
^Netherlands, was then the most energetic maritime power of 
Europe. They quickly availed themselves of Hudson's American 
discoveries; and while Smith was exploring New England, tney 
were seating themselves upon what are now the southern territo- 
ries of New York and eastern New Jersey. Operating entirely by 
the agency of a corporation — the Dutbh West India Company, 
whose chief aim was trade, they, for many years evinced no design 
to form any settlements beyond such as were convenient attendants 
upon traffic. They abode in strength upon the island of Manhattan, 
founding there, by the name of New Amsterdam, what has become 
the greatest commercial city of the New World. Gradually they 
assumed the form and functions of a colony. They spread them- 
selves from Staten Island to Canada, jmd from the Connecticut to 
the Delaware, giving to their claim the name of New Netherlands. 
Although in the grant of New England, in 1620, there was an 
express exception of territory then in the possession of any other 
Christian prince or State, yet England and New EnglanM ever 
regarded them as intruders, and orhitted no opportunity of attack 
and annoyance. They, however, by policy and prowess, were en- 
abled to maintain their possessions for half a century, "beset' with 
forts, and sealed with their blood." They were there by sufferance ; 
but in the pages of one of our richest American classics, and in the 
names of men and places upon both shoi'es of the Hudson, they were 
there forever. It is, however, to one of the most thoroughly effaced 
vestiges of their power that our subject is most nearly related. 

The Dutch continued to keep an eye to the shores of the Dela- 
ware. They built Fort Nassau on the Jersey side, at Gloucester 
Point, about four miles below Philadelphia. Cornelius May, one 
of their sea captains, divided his name between its capes, calling 
the stream South river, as they had called the Hudson, North river. 
Five years after the Virginia charter was revoked, and ere its 
northern latitudes had been re-granted or settled, in 1629, Godyn, 



MARTLAKD. 13 

a Hollander, bought from the natives a tract of about thirty miles 
front on the western coast of the Delaware Bay, between the 
southern limit of Kent county and Cape Henlopen : — not the cape 
now known by that name, but a headland fifteen miles further 
south, now called Fenwick's Island, 'where the southern limit of 
Delaware cuts the Atlantic. In 1631, he and his associates sent 
from the Texel, under the conduct of Devries, a trio of vessels,. 
laden with men and women to the number of thirty, cattle, farming 
implements and seeds. They landed upon the desired coast, and 
there, near ti]£ present site of Lewistown, planted the colony of 
Swaanendael. Wheat, tobacco and furs were the objects of the 
settlement. At the end of a year Devries left it, begirt with the 
forests and the ocean, in peace and prosperity. The next year he 
returned, and found its site marked only by the blackened huts and 
bleaching bones of his countrymen. But this short-lived colony 
was the cradle of a commonwealth. The seed thus buried in blood 
and ashes, ere long germinated and grew into the State of Dela- 
ware — small for its age, but good for its size. 

One of the Secretaries of State to James I. was Sir George Calvert, 
an eminent favorite with the court and the people, and whom the 
king created Lord of the Barony of Baltimore in Ireland. He re- 
signed his office to embrace the Catholic faith ; and his new-born zeal 
and love of colonial aggrandizement soon impelled him to seek for 
a grant of American territory whereto his religious brethren might 
flee from the rigors of conformity. His first resort was to New- 
foundland ; but failing there, he looked down into the more genial 
latitudes of Virginia. He had been a member of the old South 
Virginia Company, and hence looked for some favor in that quar- 
ter. This was in 1629. The Virginia Cavaliers, however, treated 
him rather cavalierly, and put at him the test oaths of conformity 
and allegiance. These he declined. He knew that the South Vir- 
ginia charter was annulled, and that the unsettled wastes of her 
territory were subject anew to the royal grant. . He saw that no 
settlements existed north of 38° and the Potomac. Its super- 
abundant water privileges and luxuriant forests were suflacient temp- 
tation to become its proprietary, without the incentive of revenge 
upon his old Virginia associates. He returned to England, and 
besought its investiture. It was well known there that not only 
the Dutch, but the Swedes and French, were j^reparingto send col- 
onies into these central parts of the English dominion ; but it was 
not known that any had yet been sent, or if Devries' voyage was 
known, it was unheeded. The Swedes had not yet moved, and the 



14 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

French never did. England herself asserted the need of occu- 
pancy to perfect title to the wilderness. Hence these efforts of 
other nations stimulated the readiness of the king to yield to the 
solicitude of Lord Baltimore. The charter, drawn by Sir George 
himself with unprecedented wisdom and liberality, was prepared ; 
but ere it passed the seals, he died; and his son, Cecil Calvert, 
inherited his Irish title and seigniory expectant in America. ^ 

In June, 1632, Charles I. granted unto his "trusty and well 
beloved subject," Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, all that part of 
the peninsula, or eastern shore of the Chesapeake, north of a 
line drawn eastward from the mouth of the Potomac through 
Watkins' Point and the mouth of the river "Wighco, or Pocomoke, 
to the ocean; which line is nearly on north latitude 38°; — "and 
between that bound on the south, unto that pari of j3elaware Bay, 
on the north, whieh lieth under the fortieth degree of norti, latitude, 
where New England terminates ; and all that tract of land from the 
aforesaid Bag of Delaware, in a right line, by the degree aforesaid to 
the true meridian of the first fountain of the river Potomac, and from 
thence tending towards the soift^i to the further bank of said river, 
and following the west and south side of it to a certain place," .&c., 
to the beginning. The young proprietary grantee being of the 
same faith of his father and of Charles' aspiring Queen, Henrietta 
Maria, she named the grant Maryland. 

At the date of this charter, save Claiborne's trading settlement 
upon Kent Island in the Chesapeake, which does not concern us 
here, the whole territory,.. within the confines of the grant, was a 
waste of woods and waters, uninhabited by a civilized man : and 
so it was recited to be, in the preamble — '■'■hadenus terra inculta." 
We will soon see what ominous import lay hidden in these un- 
meaning words. The obvious intent of this grant was to convey 
to Lord Baltimore the English title to all of the old revoked Vir- 
ginia grant which was nprth of the Potomac and of the bjJIfee^line 
on the peninsula. ^ It was intended to carry Maryland close up to 
!N'ew England, and full out to the Delaware. It can mean nothing 
else. Ko other grant, no settlement interfered. It was entitled 
to go to its uttermost bounds. The only real ambiguity that 
lurked in its descriptive terms was a latent one, of very consiaer- 
able importance, which we will discover after a while. 

The ISTew England Company, as well as King Charles, had been 
outwitted in the charter which he, in 1629, gave to Massachusetts. 
It conferred privileges far in advance of the age. Thinking to 
undermine it, the Council at Plymouth in Devon, in 1635, sur- 



SWEDES AND DUTCH. 15 

rendered its charter: and thus were all the unsettled latitudes of 
New England, south of the colonies which had been carved out of 
it, exposed to new grants and settlement. North latitude 40° was 
no longer its southern limit. 

New actors now come upon the stage. Gustavus Adolphus of 
Sweden had long meditated the planting of a Protestant colony 
upon the Delaware. But war diverted both his zeal and his funds. 
He fell, in defence of the Reformation, upon the bloody field of 
Lutzen. But his spirit remained in his Chancellor, Oxenstiern, 
who guided the helm of affairs during the minority of Queen 
Christiana. Under his auspices, late in 1G37, the first party of 
Swedes and Fins sailed for the Delaware, where they landed, at 
Cape Inlopen, early in 1638. We know that a much earlier date 
has been given to their advent ; but later researches have disclosed 
the error, and thereby clissipated a favorite ground of attack upon 
Lord Baltimore's titl6 to the Delaware shore, under cover of " terra 
incullaJ' Upon their arrival tltey bought from the natives rights 
to settle all along the western shore, up to Trenton Falls ; and gave 
to their domain the name of New Sweden. The Dutch scowled 
upon them, but the terror of Swedish valor gave them protection. 
The new colonists grew rapidly in numbers and prosperity, built 
forts and churches, and were surpassingly successful in cultivating 
the soil, and in trade and favor with the Indians. In a few years 
the power of Sweden fell ; and thereupon the envy of the New 
Netherlanders rose to resistance. In 1655, they sent into the 
Delaware a fleet of seven good Dutch ships, well manned, under 
the command of Governor Stuyvesant, who quickly reduced the 
Swedish forts and reestablished the Dutch dominion. Annexing 
their conquests to the effaced colony of Swaanendael, they dated 
back their title, by relation, to the purchase by Godyn. It was 
this fiction that overreached the title of Lord Baltimore. Had 
Leonard Calvert led the first settlers of Maryland to the Delaware 
coast of his brother's domain, the American confederacy would 
probably have had one little State less. 

Charles I. was beheaded in 1649 ; and during the troubles which 
preceded that event, as well as during the supremacy of Cromwell, 
the Lords Proprietary of Maryland were less anxious about its 
boundaries than its existence. The Catholic colony grew slowly, 
and was weak. Hence no decisive efforts to dispossess the Dutch 
were made until after the Restoration, in 1660; and then it was too 
late. Possession gave confidence, if not power. And to all the 
arguments and entreaties of Lord Baltimore, the Dutch "West 



16 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. • 

India Company answered : " We will defend our Soutli river pos- 
sessions even unto the spilling of blood." 

Charles II. came to the throne of his father in 1660. Proud, 
profligate and prodigal, he cared less for the preservation of his 
dominions than for the gratification of his passions. Alexander 
wept when he had no more nations to conquer — Charles II. sighed 
when he had no more distant, territories to give away. He was 
3ustly caricatured in Holland with a courtesan upon each arm, 
and courtiers picking his pockets. This " screwed his courage to 
the sticking point," and he resolved to stick the States General in 
the extremities of their possessions. His first blow was at JSTew 
Guinea, in Africa — then at New Netherlands, in America. But 
he must needs first give away the territory to be conquered. 
Finding no courtier greedy enough to take it, with its in- 
cumbrances, he, in March, 1664, granted it to his brother, the 
Duke of York, afterwards James II, Thereupon he sent out a 
squadron commanded by Col. Nicholls, who, with recruits from 
Connecticut, appeared in hostile array before the grim-visaged 
defences of Manhattan ; and, too easily, owing to intestine divi- 
sions, achieved a bloodless conquest of NewlsTetherlands upon the 
North river. The reduction of the South river dependencies, by 
Sir Robert Carr, quickly ensued. Governor Stuyvesant became 
an English subject. New Amsterdam became New York; Fort 
Orange, Albany ; and Niewer Amstel, New Castle. In the vicis- 
situdes of the war, the Dutch, in 1673, re-conquered their North 
river possessions ; but only to be, the next year, again surrendered 
and confirmed by treaty to the English. And now the Anglo- 
Saxon dominion upon the Atlantic coast was unbroken from the 
St. Croix to Florida. 

The westward limit of the Duke of York's grant was the Dela- 
ware river. New Jersey he granted to two favorites. Lord John 
Berkely and Sir George Carteret, two of the proprietaries of the 
Carolinas. New York he kept for himself, retaining with, it his 
conquests on the western shore of the Delaware ; which hence- 
forth, while he held them, were governed. by deputy governors, 
resident at New Castle. 

We are now ready to introduce the last great actor in this com- 
plicated boundary drama, — the immortal founder of Pennsylvania, 
William Perm. Assuming that our readers are familiar with his 
history and character, we will not pall them by any attempt at 
their rehearsal. Our subject is not a life, but a line. It sufficeth 
us here to know that, within five or six years before his purchase 



PENNSYLVANIA. 17 

of Pennsylvania, he had become deeply interested in the owner- 
ship and settlement of West Jersey, and of East Jersey, too. This 
turned his attention to the yet ungranted territory lying directly 
west of Xew Jersey, and of which he had a "goodly report." 
Benevolence rather than ambition impelled him to its acquisition. 

Except Georgia, which was founded so late as 1732, Pennsyl- 
vania was the last of the old thirteen British colonies to derive 
its charter from the crown. It is the only one also whose territory 
is not touched by the briny waters of the Atlantic. At the date 
of her title, all the sea coast claimed By England had been "taken 
up," and she was forced to take an inland position, — not a bad one, 
however, but one with which her proprietary grantee was at first 
greatly dissatisfied, and for which to provide a remedy, as he sup- 
posed, he was led into the controversy with Maryland, which we 
are now soon to consider. 

The ostensible consideration of the grant of Pennsylvania to 
William Penn, was a debt for services and of gratitude to his 
father. Admiral Peffn. But the son was not the less careful about 
the terms of kis charter, because it was given in payment of an old 
debt. It would be insulting his intelligence, to doubt his full and 
accurate knowledge of all the grants of English territory in 
America, which we have noticed in this sketch, — their limits and 
their derivations. It is in evidence, upon most indisputable 
authority — nay, admitted, that when he petitioned for a grant of 
territory, in 1680, it was to lie west of the Delaware river and 
north of Maryland. It is also admitted that Lord Baltimore's 
charter was the model used by Penn, who himself drafted his 
charter for Pennsylvania. He thus had express notice that Mary- 
land reached to the Delaware Bay, and took in all the land abutting 
thereon " wliich lieth under the fortieth degree of north latitude, 
where New England terminates." He thereby knew, or was 
bound to know, that New England did not terminate at any 
fractional part of the fortieth degree, nor at line 39°, its southern 
confine. For, a degree of latitude is not an indivisible line, but a 
definite space, or belt, upon the earth's surface, of 69| statu.te 
miles. Nothing short of the northern confine of the fortieth 
degree would give to Old Virginia her complement of two hundfed 
miles north of Old Point Comfort. And the New England grant 
was '■'■from the fortieth degree, &c." 

Great precaution and formality were used in acting upon Penn's 
charter. It was held up under consideration for nine months. 
The petition and original draft of the charter are not extant. It 



18 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

is known that the latter had to undergo many modifications. When 
presented to the king, they were referred to the Dnke of York's 
secretary and Lord Baltimore's agents, in order "that they might 
report how far the petitioners' pretensions may consist with their 
bovndaries." Both agreed to his proposals, provided his patent 
might be so worded as not to affect their rights. The Duke's 
commissioners insisted that Penn's southern line should run at least 
iiventy miles northward of Neio Castle. At length the boundaries 
were adjusted so as to please all parties. And, after the articles 
had passed the scrutiny and emendations of the Bishop of London 
and Lord Chief Justice North, who shaped their church and 
governmental franchises, so as to eschew the "undue liberties" 
which had been granted to Massachusetts and to Maryland, the 
charter was approved by the Lords of Trade and Plantations, and 
prepared for the king's allowance. Penn's success depended upon 
concession and conciliation : resistance or pertinacity would have 
endangered all. And yet he obtained a wonderfully liberal grant, 
both of power and territory. 

On the 4th of March, 1681, King Charles 11. granted unto " our 
trusty and well beloved subject, William Penn, Esquire^'' the terri- 
tory of Pennsylvania, [Penn's Woods,] by metes and bounds, as fol- 
lows, viz : >A 

" All that tract, or part of land in America, with the islands 
therein contained, as the same is hounded on the east hy Delaware 
river, from twelve miles northward of Neio Castle town, unto the three 
and fortieth, degree of north latitude, if said river doth extend so 
far northward, but if not, then by a meridian line from tlxe head of 
said river to said forty-third degree. The said land to extend, loest- 
ward five degrees in longitude, to be computed from sam eastern 
bounds. And the said lands to be bounded on the north by the 
beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, and 
on the south by a circle drawn at twelve miles distance from New Castle, 
northward and westward unto the hegimdng of the fortieth degree of 
northern latitude, and th*en by a straight line westward to the limits of 
longitude above mentioned." 

The partisan advocates of Penn's pretensions contend that this 
grant gave to Pennsylvania three degrees of latitude upon the Del- 
aware, minus the circular-headed abscission around New Castle- 
that by the "heginni7}g" of thTe fortieth degree, ^^unto" which the 
circular line, drawn at twelve miles distance northward and westward 
from New Castle, was to reach, was the southern beginning of that 
degree. The absurdity of this construction, when applied to the 



WHERE WAS 40° ? 19 

parallels, of latitude as they now are, is apparent. Bj no geometrical 
use of the terms can a circle of twelve miles radius from New Cas- 
tle reach either heginning of the fortieth degree, much less its southern 
confine, which is nearly fifty miles distant. Moreover, the circle 
was to come ^Hoito" it by being drawn '•'• northward and westward." 
The moment it began to go southward and eastumrd it must stop, 
and there the " straight line westward" mustbeg^n. 

We cannot find that William Penn himself ever asserted this 
absurd pretence ; or, that he was to~have three degrees of latitude, 
though his sons and their apologists did assert it most strenuously. 
The nearest that he ever came to it was to say that he petitioned for 
jive degrees of latitude, [evidently from 40° to 45°, the old northern 
limit of the North Virginia Company,] but when before the Bojftxf 
of Plantations, watching, not urging, his petition, " the Lord Presi- 
dent turned to me and said, ' Mr. Penn, will not three degrees serve 
your turn V ' I answered,' says he, ' I submit both the what and how 
to the honorable Board.'" He admits also that this inquiry w^as 
prompted by its being urged that Lord Baltimore had but tivo ' 
degrees, which must have meant, from 38° to 40° ; for 38° being 
fixed in his'patent, by natural marks, if Maryland must stop at 39° — 
the southern beginning of the fortieth degree, then she would have 
but one degree. 

We may as well now disclose that latent ambiguity which lurks 
in Lord Baltimore's pateht, but which becomes "a patent one in 
William Penn's. Where, upon the ground, in WS'2, and in 1680, loas 
that artificial line, marked " 40°," believed to he locttted ? The answer 
to this question solves kll the difficulty. 

The knowledge of American' geography, in those days, was 
very imperfect. It extended little beyond the great headlands, 
bays and rivers, which varied the outline of the Atlantic coast, and 
its immediate contiguities. But the high contracting parties, who 
dealt in conveyances which covered a continent, assumed that they 
knew all about it ; and that capes, rivers, bays, islands and towns, 
must conform to distances in miles and in deo-rees of latitude. 
They were less precise in their u'se -of terms which were to define 
the boundaries of independent sovereignties, than are p'eople now- 
a-days in describing a town lot. The consequences of this headi- 
"ness and heedlessness were conflicting grants and angry conflicts, 
memorable iusttlnces of which are now before us. 

The only authoritative map, in 1632, of the localities upon which 
this strife grew, was that of the renowned Captain Smith, already 
refenxid to. And it would seem that some of the errors upon its 



20 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

face were continued down to 1681. It is very certain that one of 
them was. By that map, the transit of line 40° across the Delaware 
was fixed about — a little below — where Neio Castle is. Penn says it 
was at Boles' Isle — but where that is we do not know. Others 
fixed it at the head of the hay — but that is very indefinite ; for where 
the river ends and the bay begins is not agreed. Penn puts the 
bay thirty miles below jSTew Castle : if so, his circular line could 
never attain " unto" it. Line 38°, the northern confine of the first 
South Virginia grant, was correctly fixed on Watkins' Point. The 
shortenings were between that and ISTew'Castle. The efiect of this 
error — besides eighty years of angi^' strife— -was to contract Mary- 
land, and, as we shall see, correspondingly to widen Pennsylvania. 

We have seen that the Duke of York insisted at first that Penn's 
southern line should be twenty miles north of ISTew Castle^ This 
was to keep clear of his Swedo-Dutch dominions. But, inasmuch 
as that would leave an indefinite ungranted vacancy north of 40°, 
the circle was introduced, and the radius shortened to twelve miles, 
so as thereby, by a " northward and westward" sweep, and without 
coming any nearer the Delaware, to reach the " beginning of the 
fortieth degree," and leave no vacancy. 

This collation of the facts and terms of the two grants solves all 
the mystery w^hich hung around them for a century. It undoes 
the sophistry which claimed for Pennsylvania three degrees of lati- 
tude. The sophism consisted in assuming that as Penn's northern 
confine was to be line 42° — the southern beginning of the forty- 
third degree, therefore, as the same words were used, his southern 
limit must be line 39° — the southern beginning of the fortieth 
degree. But Penn must be considered as standing between these 
two confines ; reaching with one hand to the southern beginning 
of the former degree, and with the other to the northern beginning 
of the latter. It matters not that, upon maps and globes, the 
degrees are numbered from the equator northward, so that 39° is 
the beginning of the fortieth degree. Reverse the direction, and 
40° is its beginning; just as in surveying, the line which is north 
39° east, is, when reversed, south 39° west.^ In our next chapter 



^ We adopt this view of the case with some hesitancy — not because we doubt its cor- 
rectness, but because it stands opposed to the construction given to Penn's cha'rter by 
nearly all the writers upon it whom we have consulted. Of these are Proua, (History 
of Pennsylvania,) Bancroft, (History United Stattss, vol. ii. p. '362,) N. B. Craig, (1 
Olden Time,) Darby, (History of Pennsylvania,) not to mentiou'the sons of Penn', their 
agents, attorneys and Governors, in the controversies with Maryland and Virginia. 
The late James Dunlop, Esq., iu'his " Treatise upon Mason arid Dixon's Line," (1 Oldeu 



WILLIAM PENN. 21 

we will sec, with complacent wonder, what mighty leverage there 
was in this pretence to give to Pennsylvania a most im^iortant 
addition to her western territory. 

33ut we are orettint; into the strife before all the elements which 
engendered it are brought into action. We return to our narrative. 

Penn was a favorite, but not a courtier, at the court of the 
Stuarts. Uprightness and benevolence can commend their possess- 
ors to influence, even with the most dissolute. Penn had laudable 
purposes — to' his sect and his colony — to accomplish, by his com- 
placency'. That he was thrice imprisoned for conscience sake, 
and thrice discharged without guilt, is his triple shield against all 
the darts of envy and abuse which his traducers, from Oldmixon to 
Macaulay, have hurled against him." His very innocency led him 
to boast of his influence. In the careless lapse of years which 
intervened from the Duke's conquest to Penn's proprietorship of 
Pennsylvania, some tenantry of Lord Baltimore had settled upon 
the western shore of the Delaware, within his chartered limits. 
Penn, ere he had visited the localities, was led to believe they were 
upon his territory. In September, 1681, he wrote them a friendly 
general letter, warning them "to pay no more taxes or assessments 
f 

Time, 530,) alone sustains onrTicw, and he but scouts at the popular construction. Wc 
adopted it at first impression ourself; but research and reflection compelled us to the 
opinion we here, and elsewhere in this and the next chapter, enunciate. There is no 
disloyalty iri it ; for we consider it more to the honor of Pennsylvania and her illustri- 
ous founder, than the opposite construction. Why put him in the awkward predica- 
ment of wilfully overlapping a degree of Lord Baltimore's grant,, when there is no need 
for it ? and if iie and his successors gained for Pennsylvania more territory than they 
contracted for, and gained it honestly, so much the better for them, and us who enjoy it. 
^ " From his early youth to old age, he was a man of mark, and lived constantly in 
the eye of the public ; surrounded by enemies ever ready to put the \forst construction 
upon his conduct. He went ttirough the €urnace without the smell of fire u^ion his 
garments ; and left behind him a character for moral virtile upon which malice itself 
could fix no stain. * * * * That he was not habitually honest and upright is a his- 
torical proposition as absurd as it would be to say that Julius Cassar was a coward, that 
Virgil had no poetic genius, or that Cicero could not speak Latin. Nay, he was some- 
thing more than an honest man. He was a philanthropist, who gave all he had and all 
he was, time, talents and fortune, to the service of mankind. The heir of a large 
estate, the founder of the greatest city in North America, the sole owner of more than 
forty thousand square miles of land, fie never spent a shilling 'in any vicious extrava- 
gance; but his large-handed' charities so exhausted his income, that in his old age he 
was imprisoned for debt. He had the unlimited confidence of a monarch whose favor 
an unscrupulous man would have coined into countless heaps of gold; but he left the 
court with his hands empty ; and whosoever says they were not clean as well as empty, 
knows not whereof he affirms." — Judge Black's Address at Pennsylvania College, O'.ttgt- 
hurg, September, 1 856 

3 



22 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

by any order or law of Maryland; for if 3'ou do it will be greatly 
to your own wrong and my prejudice ; though I am not conscious to 
myself of such an iiisvjfirknrii (f power here idth my superiors^ as not 
to be able to weather the difficvUy if you should" This kind monition 
and harmless boast was the letting out of the water of strife — par- 
tisans rallied to their leaders — the contest was be^un. 

When Penn's trusty kinsman, Markham, had lauded his first 
emigrant party at Upland, his early care, under instructions from 
the king and the proprietor, was to confer with Lord Baltimore 
upon the interesting- question of boundary. Th^y met in the 
spring of 1682, and then tirst discovered, fhom a cardful astronomical 
observation, what neither before knew, that the true line of 40° 
was above the' mouth of the Schuylkill. Lord Baltimore's eye 
dilatcd-^Markham's fell. AVbat was to be done ? They parted in 
peace ; and Markham reports the annoying discovery to Penn, in 
London. 

Penn had wished and believed that his colony would take in 
the head of the Chesapeake, and be far enough down on the Dela- 
ware not to be locked up by ice and enemies. This discovery 
frosted his expectations, but did not freeze his energies. The 
Duke of York was his friend, and his West Delaware dependencies 
would give the desired outlet in that direction. True, the Duke 
had no title from the crown, and Baltimore had. But the Duke 
had possession. It was power against parchment; and Penn 
wisely concluded that power would prevail. A glimmer of right 
broke forth from the smouldering ruins of Swaanendael, which 
dilFused itself all along the shore from the false Cape of IlenJopen 
to the mouth of Christiana. Penn rejoiced in its light. He im- 
portuned the Duke to convey to him these unproductive posses- 
sions. The Duke yielded ; and by two deeds, in August, 1682, 
invested Penn with all \ns, titles to twelve miles around ISTew 
Castle, and to all the coast below that to Ilenlopen. And now it 
was parchment and possession against parcliraent and right, with 
power as the preponderant in the unequal balance. "Without 
adopting," says an impartial historian,^ "the harsh censure of 
Chalmers, who maintains that this transaction reflected dishonor, 
both on the Duke of York and William Penn, we can hardly fail 



f Siv Jrunes Grnbaine, of Scotland, whofce "History of the Rise and Progress of the 
United t^tates of North America, till the British lleA-olution in l(jS8,'" — two volumes 
octavo, — is exceedingly satisfactory ixpon our colonial titles and boundaries, especially 
those of purely English derivation. 



PENN AND LORD BALTIMORE. 23 

to regard it as a faulty and ambiguous proceeding, or to regret the 
proportions in which its attendant blame must be divided, between 
a prince distinguished even among the Stuarts for perfidy and 
injustice, and a patriarch renowned even among the Quakers for 
huraatiity and benevolence."- 

Thus panoplied, Tenn made his first visit to his Delaware 
domains, with "twenty-six sail" of colonists, in the autumn of 
1682. He landed at New Castle, and after receiving livery of 
seizin of his newly acquired " territories," and the homage of tliree 
thousand people, he repaired to Chester, (Upland,) which now was 
his capital ; for as yet Philadelphia had no existence. After trans- 
acting some governmental affairs, and paying his respects to the 
Duke's governor at New York, he repaired to Maryland, to 
confer with Charles, Lord Baltimore, about boundaries. The inter- 
view was friendly, but f(5rmal. It resulted in nothing, except to 
disclose more of the grounds of Penn's claim. One was, that Lord 
Baltimore's two degrees were to consist of sixty miles each : — 
another, that being to have only lands* " not yet cultivated or 
planted," [in 1632,] — liacttnus terra inculla, — Delaware did not pass, 
for that it had been bought and planted by the Dutch ; "" but if it 
did, it was forfeited, for not reducing it during t\Venty years, under 
the English sovereignty, ~t)f which he held it, but was at last re- 
duced by the king, and therefore his to give as he pleaseth." His 
lordship answered, "I stand on my patent." .At a subsequent 
interview at New Castle, Penn ofiered to stand to the 40th line, 
provided Lord Baltimore would sell him some territory south of 
it on the Chesapeake, " at a gentlemanly price — so much per mile," 
in case he could not get it by latitude, so as to have a '" back port'' 
to Pennsylvania. His lordship offered to barter some territory 
in that direction, for the "three lower counties" on Delaware Bay. 
"This," says Penn, "I presume he knew I would not do, for his 
Boyal Highness had the one-halJ\ and I did not prize the thing I 
desired at such a -rate." But his lordship was inexorable, and 



^ It is strange that Penn was not afraid to hazard the use of this pretense, for the very 
same ■words are in the preamble of his own charter ; and the Delaware front of his grant, 
had, long before, been settled by Swedes, Dutch and Englisli. He seems to have been 
nware of the frailty of his tenure; for, three days before he got his deeds for the " ter- 
ritories," he procured a release from the Duke of York of all his title to Pennsylvania. 
But if prior settlement rendered the grant void, the release could give it no validity ; es- 
pecially as the Duke hrmscli had no other title than by conquest. 



24 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

here friendly negotiations were suspended for half a cen- 
tury." 

Lord Baltimore now assumed offensive attitudes. lie first made 
forcible entrj* upon Penu's territories. His next resort was to 
the king. The matter was referred to the Lords Committee of 
Trade and Plantations, before whom both parties appeared. Pend- 
ing the hearings, Charles 11. died, and the Duke of York ascended 
the throne as James II. To him the committee reported in No- 
vember, 1685. 'As might have been expected, the decision was 
against Lord Baltimore^ It, however, decided but one of the 
questions at issue — the rights of the parties upon the Delaware 
Bay ; leaving them still to find the " 40th degree " as best they 
could. The order of the king in council, based upon the report, 
was, that that part of the Chesapeake and Delaware peninsula 
which is between the latitude of Cape Ilenlopen and 40°, be divided 
by a right line into two equal parts: that the eastern half should 
" belong to his Majesty,'" (viz : to King James, who granted it to 
William Penn, when Duke of York,) and the other half remain to 
the Lord Baltimore, as comprised in his charter." Thus was 
Maryland dismembered. The little State, cradled at Swaanendael, 
could now " stand alone." 

Except an ineffectual order from Queen Anne, in 1708, to enforce 
this decision, nothing was done under it. Both ends of the di- 
visional line were in dispute, and until they were fixed, the exe- 
cution of the orders in council was impracticable and useless. In 
the midst of these and other troubles, harassed by debt and perse- 
cution, his colony mortgaged to money lenders, and half sold to 
Queen Anne, in 1718, William Penn died. His grave is in Eng- 
land, but his monument is in the system of laws upon which he 
founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania." Si monumentum 
quccris circumspice. 



' Penn was here again in 1699-1701, and would doubtless have resumed, perhaps con- 
summated, the negotiations ; but he had no one to treat with — Lord Baltimore's province 
and government being then in the hands of a deputy of William of Orange ,who had 
no love for any abettor of James II., as Penn himself had been made to feel. 

10 This, and Penn's admission to Lord Baltimore, in November, 1682, that his "Royal 
Highness had the one half of the three lower couuties — although Penu had absolute 
deeds from him for them — throws a cloud over the impartiality of that adjudication : 
and raises a suspicion that favor and interest had more to do with it than the terra 
inculta pretence upon which it wfts based. 

" «' With one consent the wise and the learned of all nations have agreed, that, 
as a lawgiver, he was the greatest that ever founded a State, in ancient or modern 



AGREEMENT OP 1732. 25 

Peun was almost as unfortunate in his will as in his charter; 
for it too gave rise to contention, as to whom his proprietary estates 
now belonged. After some ten years of doubt, it was finally 
settled that they went to his three sons, John, Thomas and Richard ; 
the last named being a minor until 1732. All that was done rela- 
ting to the strife, during this abeyance, was an agreement with 
Baltimore, by their mother and the mortgagees, in February, 1723, 
to keep the peace for eighteen months. In the meantime, the 
proprietorship of Maryland had descended to Charles Calvert, the 
second of that name, great grandson of the first proprietor. 

A better spirit seems now to have actuated the parties. The 
Protestant succession was firmly fixed on the British throne ; with 
whom, thus far, the Catholic proprietor had met with no more 
favor than from the Stuarts. The growing strifes along the borders 
were expensive, and retarded improvements. Policy, interest, and, 
we suppose, inclination, all called for a compromise ; and as soon 
as Richard Penu was out of his minority, tho call was responded 
to. Having procured from America a map of the localities, re- 
garded as authentic, they, on the lOtli of May, 1732, enter into a 
long agreement — covering ten or twelve closely written pages, by 
which they provide for the final adjustment of all their disputed 
boundaries. Its most remarkable features are, that it adopts* the 
order in council of 1685, halving the peninsyla ; and supersedes all 
reference to 40°, or the 40th degree, by resort to fixed, land- 
marks. The boundaries provided for by this important agreement, 
being those which subsist to this day, were to be ascertained as 
follows : 

First. The map of the localities, printed upon the margin 
of the agreement, is that by which it is to be explained and 
understood. Second. Run a circular line at twelve English 
statute miles distance from l^Tew Castle, northward and westward. 
Third. Go down to Cape Henlopen, "which lieth south of Cape 
Cornelius," and, from its ocean point, measure a due west line to 
Chesapeake Bay ; find its middle point, and plant a corner there. 



times. He was not the very foremost, but he was among the foremost to disclaim all power 
of coercion «ver the conscience. This alone, if he had done nothing else, would ni;irk 
the tallness of his intellectual sLature. For, when the light of a new truth is dawning 
upon the world, its earliest rays are always shed upon the loftiest minds. * * * 
His name is inscribed upon this mighty Commonwealth. Day by day it rises higher* 
and stands more firmly on its broad foundation; and there it will stand foiover — sacred 
to the viemory of William Penn." Judge Black's Address, cited in note 0. 



26 MASON AND DIXON's LINE. 

Fourth. From said middle point run a line northward, up the 
peninsula, so as to be a tangent line to the periphery of the 
circle, at or near its western verge ; and mark the tangent point. 
Fifth. From said tangent. point run a line die north until it comes 
to a point fifteen English statute miles south of the latitude of the 
most southern part of the city of Philadelphia, and there plant 
another corner. Sixth. From that fifteen mile point, run'a line due 
west, across the Susquehanna, &c., to the utmost longitude of 
Pennsylvania. Seventh. That the red ink lines then drawn upon 
the map indicate the boundaries agreed upon : and, Eighth. That 
those lines when run and marked shall be the boundaries of the 
parties forever : provided^ that if the due north line from the tangent 
point shall cut off a segment of the circle to the west, it shall 
belong to New Castle county. 

The agreement then embodies mutual releases from each party 
to the other, of such portions of their chartered territories as w^ere 
now relinquished, A joint commission to run and mark the lines 
is then provided for; the commissioners to begin their work in 
October, 1732, and complete it by Christmas, 1733. Default in 
continued punctual attendance by those of either party, so as to 
delay its consummation beyond the appointed time, was to avoid 
the agreement and work a forfeiture to the other party of £5000. 

Commissioners to run and mark the lines were duly appointed. 
They met at jSTew Castle, and began and ended in fruitless conten- 
tion. Lord Baltimore's commissioners contended that the "twelve 
miles distaiice," at which the circular line was to run from JN'ew 
Castle, meant its peripher3^, not its radius ; and that the Cape Tlen- 
lopen intended was the upper cape, opposite Cape May, the 
agreement to the contrary notwithstanding. Thereupon, the Penn 
commissioners happening to come one day a few minutes behind 
time, the Marylanders declared the penalty forfeited and the 
agreement avoided. "And now," says an excellent Maryland 
writer upon this subject,^^ "Lord P>altimore did what neither 
improved his cause nor bettered his reputation. Treating his own 
deed as a nullity, he asked George IL for a confirmatory grant 
according to the terms of the charter of 1632. It was very properly 
refused, and the parties were referred to the Court of Chancery. 



1- John II. B. Latrobe, Esq., of Baltimore, whose lecture upon Mason and Dixon's 
Line, read before the Peuiisylvauia Historical Society, Kovember, 1854, "is a model of 
lucid and concise narration, as well as of eloquent and appropriate comment. 



IN CHANCERY. 



27 



And here Lord Hardwickc decided in eftect" that the truellenlopcn 
was the point insisted on by the Penus ; that the centre of the 
circle was the middle of ISTew Castle, as near as it could be ascer- 
tained; and that the twelve miles were a radius, and not the 
periphery. This was in 1750. Other difficulties now arose. It- 
was important to Lord Baltimore, if possible, to shorten the statute 
mile ; and the mode his friends proposed was to measure it on the 
surface of the ground, and not horizontally. So Lord Hardwicke 
was again applied to, and horizontal measurements were ordered.* 
This was in March, 1751. Stilllhings were not clear. The sliorter 
the line across the peninsula — its beginning on the Delaware side 
being fixed — t+ie better for Lord Baltimore, for the nearer would 
the centre of it be to the ocean," And so here, again, his friends 
came to'^his aid, and insisted 'that Slaughter's creek — a channel 
separating Taylor's Island from the Chesapeake, gave the western 
terminus. But the Penns demanded that the line should be 
continued to the bay shore itself, from which the broad waters of 
the great esfuary stretched, unbroken by headland or island, to 
the remote and dim horizon. And again was Lord Hardwicke 
referred to. But, in the mean time, Lord Baltimore died, and the 
suit abated. When it was revived, and the heir [Frederick] of Lord 
Baltimore was made a party, he refused to be bound b}^ the acts of 
his ancestor. If, however, there was a^jy thing that could equal 
the faculties of the Marylanders in making trouble, it was the 
untiring perseverance with which the Penns devoted themselves to 
the contest, and followed their opponents in all their doublings. 
And they had their reward." 

It was in 1735 that the Penns called his refractory lordship before 
the High Chancellor. Sir William Murray, afterwards Lord 
Mansfield, was their counsel. The bill prayed specific perform- 
ance of the aarreement of 1732. Baltimore resisted its execution 
on the common ground of weak -causes — fraud, and ignorance of 
his rights ; choosing rather' to be considered a fool than a knave. 
But the Chancellor reversed his position. 

Pending this tedious judicial controversy, events of stirring 
interest occurred along the border, especially in the Susquehanna 
neighborhood. Lord Baltimore had in lG82-'3, for some purpose, 
run a due east line from about the mouth of Octorora creek to the 



^' Penn vs. Lord Baltimore. 1 Vcsey, Sr., 444, ami supplonient. 



28 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

Delaware, Mliicli is several miles south of the agreed line/* 
Thinking he meant this for his northern limit, Pennsylvania 
settlers had ci owded down pretty close to that line, especially the 
Nottingham settlement, one of the oldest in Chester county. On 
the other band, ere the precise import of the agreement of 1732 
was known here, Governor Gordon, of Pennsylvania, had inad- 
vertently given countenance to the idea that, west of the Susque- 
hanna, Maryland was to go up to the true 40°, as compensation for 
the loss of Delaware. But long before this, as early as 1722, Mary- 
landers hud begun to "squat " all along up the western shore of that 
river, even far above 40°. In 1730, the famous Col. Thomas Cresap^* 



'* In the map printed on the margin of the agreement of 1732, (see copy prefixed to 
4 Pa. Archives,) the head of Elk is put above New Castle, and the due east and west 
line fi'om the corner, fifteen miles south of Philadelphia, crosses the Susquehanna at the 
mouth of Octorora. And it was proven that Lord Baltimore put that line on the map 
himself iu red ink. Blood flowed from the blunder. 

'•^ The life of this renowned personage is a romance of realities. He was the father of 
Captain Michael Cresap, of Logan's speech celebrity, and elsewhere noticed in these 
sketches. The Colonel was an Englishman — came to this country before Gen. Washington 
was born, but was an acquaintance of the family. Having espoused the quarrel of 
Lord Baltimore with the Penns, he became its champion on the Susquehanna frontier. 
After the temporary line was run, in 1739, he had to leave. Being an Indian trader, 
he transferred his establishment within the confines of Maryland, where he failed in 
business. Thereupon he removed to Skipton, now called Old Town, on the Maryland 
shore of the Potomac, nearly opposite the junction of the North and South branches. 
Hero Washington was his guest in March, 1748, when out surveying for Lord Fairfax. 
He acquired a large landed estate here and on the South branch. He was one of the 
old Ohio Company, and the commissioner for locating Nemacolin's road, from Wills' 
creek to the Ohio river. We find him at Skipton, in 1750, largely in the Indian trade; 
and, true to his hate of the Pennites, seeking to excite against them the enmity of the 
Indians. To this end he sent them messages that the Pennsylvania traders always 
cheated them in all their dealings ; and taking pity on them, he intended to use them 
better, and would sell them goods at less than cost, viz : "A match coat for a buck ; a 
strowd for a buck and a doe ; a pair of stockings for two raccoons ; twelve bars of lead 
for a buck," &c. This story we have on the authority of Barnaby Curran, " a hired 
man of Mr. Parker's," and one of Washington's " servitors " in his mission to the French 
posts on the Allegheny, in 1753. Col. Cresap was a contractor for army supplies to 
Gen. Braddock, and was much censured for tardiness and selling musty flour. In the 
perilous times which ensued upon the defeat of that General, Cresap was generous, 
brave and energetic in his contributions to the frontier defence. He made a foi t of his 
house by stockading it ; raised and equipped a company, commanded by his son Thomas, 
and kept up the struggle to the last. He mixed himself up in the disputes between 
Lord Fairfax and Lord Baltimore, concerning the western boundary of Maryland; 
making a map of the localities, which is yet extant. Ever ready to annoy Pennsylvania, 
he lent all his influence in favor of Virginia in the boundary controversy of 1770-'74, 
as we will see in the next chapter. The last we hear of him is in .lanuary, 1775, as one 
of 'a Virginia committee to raise arms and supplies wherewith to begin the battles 



COL. THOMAS CRESAP. 29 

took a position at the "Blue Rock" ferry, west of the Susquehanna, "^ 
a little below Wrightsville, where he, for many years, was the head 
and front of the Maryland incursions and resistance. He became 
the right arm of Lord Baltimore and Governor Ogle in that 
quarter. He was licensed ferryman, surveyor, captain of the 
militia, &c. He built a fort, in and around which congregated 
some of the worst of " border rutBans." It was to counteract these 
encroachments that the manor of Springettsbury, in York county, 
of ten by twelve miles, beginning over against the mouth of 
Conestoga, was surveyed in 1722, giving birth to a dubious class of 
titles not yet wholly quieted. Many of the German palatines, 
which about this period flocked to Pennsylvania in hundreds, settled 
upon these lands. The Marylanders wheedled them to attorn to 
Lord Baltimore. Some complied ; but, when they saw the trick, 
resumed their first allegiance. This incensed the Marylanders. 
They drove them ofl" by armed force; and, under well guarded 
bands of surveyors, gave their lands to others. The Marylanders 
denominated the Penniles " quaking cowards ;" and these retaliated 
by calling their assailants " hominy gentry." Ail sorts of outrages 
were perpetrated. Even the softer sex became furies in the strife. 
The deadly rifle told its aim on man and beast. The solemnities 
of sepulture became occasions for revenge ; and rapine gloated in 
arrests and imprisonments. Fortunately for the peace of the two 
provinces. Governor Thomas Penn was at the helm in person. His 
policy was patience, under a confident hope of triumph in the 
august tribunal to which he and his brothers had appealed. Once 
only did he resort to magisterial redress. In a crisis of the conflict 
it became necessary to arrest Cresap on a charge of murder. The 
sheriff of Lancaster accomplished it by an armed posse, after firing 
his castle over his head. And while on his way to prison at Phila- 
delphia, when in sight of the infant city, this compeer of Rob 
Roy Macgregor'« said to his bailiffs, " This is a pretty Maryland 
town. I have been a troublesome fellow; but in this last affair I 
have done a notable job. For I liave made a present of two 



of the American Revolution. His hospitality was as unlimited as wns his resolute- 
ness and hatred of Pennsylvania. Hence the Indians called him the Big Spoon. 
We gather these particulars from various sources, having never seen the narratives of 
his relative, John J. Jacob, and of Brantz Mayer. 

^^ There is more in this allusion than may strike the reader at first blush ; for Rob 
Roy was flourishing about the same time — maybe a little earlier — in his raids upon the 
dukedom of Montrose. See introduction to Scott's "Rob Roy." 



30 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

provinces to the king ; and if the people find themselves' bettered 
by the change, they may thank Tom Cresap for it." The meaning 
of this gasconade is beyond conjecture. Gladness measures its 
achievements by the monstrosity of its own excesses. The provin- 
ces were yet safe to their proprietors. 

So rife and rampant had these border feuds become, that, in 
1737, the king and council had to interfere ; and, in 1738, the 
high parties litigant came to an agreement to stay their further 
progress. The expedient was a temporary line. They agreed tlifit, 
until the cause was decided, they would conform their grants and 
pretensions to an east and west line ; which, east of the Susque- 
hanna, should be fifteen miles and a quarter south of the latitude 
of Philadelphia ; and, west of that river, fourteen miles and three 
quarters south of the same latitude. The king ordered these lines to 
be run and marked, and it was done." This was in 1739. The western 
end of the line was the summit of the Cove, or Kittatinny moun- 
tain, near the western limit of Franklin county, then the western 
extreme of the Indian purchase of 1736. This ended the forays. 
Cresap, who had been liberated and thereupon had pitched in 
again, now withdrew. His occupation there was gone. We will 
hear of him again in another quarter. He seems to have been 
"born unto trouble." And yet his love of mischief was no vulgar . 
propensity. He sacrificed his own interests to appease his revenge, 
and exorcised personal quarrels that he might bring provinces 
within the circle of his sorcery. 

We left the Lord Chancellor deliberating upon the length of 
the peninsular east and west line ; and whether Frederick, Lord 
Baltimore, was bound by his father's agreement of 1732, or could 
overreach it by holding under deeds of family settlement made by ; 
more remote ancestors. Happily those deliberations were cut off ■ 
by a compromise. For, on the 4th of July, 1760, the parties agree 
to celebrate their independence of judicial constraint by a new 



" See map, in 1 Pa. Arch. 594, 558, &c. It was while measuring down these 15|- 
miles, from the latitude of South Philadelphia, that the first dispute sprung up about 
horizontal measurement. The Marylauders insisted upon superficial. Some of the 
Penn surveyors had been over the ground before, and knew that about 20 perches would 
compensate for the diflFerence. With this knowledge they procured the Maryland com-, 
missioners to agree to allow 25 ! So common is it for even honest (?) men, when 
engaged in controversy, to take advantages, which, under other circumstances, they 
would scorn. This line, west of Susquehanna, was run ex parte — one of the ISlaryland 
commissioners having to go home, and the other not choosing to go on without him. It 
was, however, fairly run. 



FINAL AGREEMENT OF 1760. 31 

compact, or agreement, which was to end, and did end, all their 
controversies. The claims of the Penns were yielded to in every 
particular. Tlie agreement of that date is an embodiment of 
the history of the dispute, and is a model of old fashioned 
artistic conveyancing, covering thirty-four closely printed octavo 
pages.^^ Substantially, it is bat a recital of the old compromise of 
1732, and of the events which had since occurred; and a full and 
absolute conlirmation of that agreement, and assent to the judicial 
constructions whie-h almost ever»y part of it had received. Among 
its new provisions were stipulations by the parties respectively, 
that the Penns should confirm the titles of Lord Baltimore's 
grantees to lands east of the Susquehanna, any where north of the 
agreed line (fifteen miles south of the latitude" of the southern 
limit of Philadelphia), but that west of that river such confirmation 
should extend only to lands within a quarter of a mile north of 
that line. On the other hand. Lord Baltimore was to confirm 
Penn's grants west of the Susquehanna, and south of the line 
indefinitely ; but, east of that river, only to the extent of one 
quarter of a mile south of the agreed line ; provided, in all cases, 
the lands were then (July 4, 1760,) in the " actual possession and 
occupation " 'of the grantees. This feature of the agreement has 
given rise to some I'tigation along the border.^' The reader will " 
remember that the iempor try line of 1737-'9 had an offset of half 
a mile to the northward, at the Susquehanna ; wherefore, is not 
disclosed. The agreement then provides for a speedy joint com- 
mission to determine, run out and mark all the lines between the 
parties, without let or hindrance ; that the agreement itself shall 
be acknowledged and enrolled in chancery, and thereupon be 
humbly submitted to his Majesty in council, for his gracious 
allowance and approval. This done, the proprietories are at peace. 
Frederick, Lord Baltimore, goes upon a "tour to the east;" and 



'* It is the first document in 4 Pennsylvania Archives. 

^' See the Pennsylvania case of Stigers vs. Thomas, 5 Barr, 480; and again, in 11 
Harris, R67, which originated in Fulton county, near Hancock, Maryland. The contest 
was between an old Maryland grant and survey, and a much younger Pennsylvania war- 
rant, &c. In the first report of the case, the Maryland title prevailed, owing to an 
imperfect knowledge of the history of this dispute and of the agreement of 1760. In 
the meantime the publication, by Pennsylvania, of her Colonial Records and Archives, 
disclosed all the details of the strife, and the agreement itself. Eventually the Penn- 
sylvania title triumphed. Judge Lowrie, in delivering the opinion of the court in the 
last case, inadvertently says the disputed territory was only half a mile wide. This la 
an error. It had a width of more than twenty miles. 



32 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

the Penns remain in London to protect their private and provincial 
interests. 

Before we proceed to run and mark the lines, let us pause a 
moment to take an account of the loss and gain of the parties, in 
the results of this long and perplexing controversy. Was the 
agreement of 1760, and its prototype of 1732, a compromise — a 
mutual concession of conflicting pretensions ; or was it wholly a 
surrender by one party to the other ? 

Maryland lost what is now the State of Delaware, that is cer- 
tain ; and, as we think, she was thereby unjustly shorn of her fair 
proportions. But that Calvert's loss was Penn's gain, is not so 
certain. He sought "water," but obtained gall — the bitterness of 
strife. He asked an outlet to the ocean for his "too backward 
lying province," and there was opened unto him and his sons an 
inlet to a sea of troubles. He purchased the Duke's appanage to 
ISTew York, to make it an appendage to Pennsylvania ; but, ere his 
title to it was settled, it set up for itself; and when the American 
colonies broke the bands of British dependence, it too became an 
independent State.^" And so Delaware was lost to Pennsylvania. 
The judicious Scottish historian of our early settlements, already 
quoted, regards the loss of Delaware to Lord Baltimore as a 
retribution for his encroachment upon Virginia. May not the 
same punitive Providence be again traced in its ultimate severance 
from a State, all whose other foundations were in righteousness 
and peace ? 

We have before said that the consequence to Lord Baltimore, 
of the misplacement of the fortieth line of north latitude, in the 
maps of the Chesapeake and Delaware region, current at the date 



2" From 1682 to 1691, Delaware was, for all practical purposes, a part of Pennsyl- 
vania, each having the same charters of privileges, the same general laws, the same 
Governor and Assembly — in which each was equally represented ; each having three 
counties — New Castle, Kent and Sussex, and Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester. In 1691, 
when Penn came under the ban of King William, Delaware affected to become jealous 
of Pennsylvania ; and, although uniting in the same Assembly, had a separate Governor. 
In 1704, she set up a separate Assembly, under the same Governor. From 1755 to the 
Revolution, in 1776, she had both a separate Governor and Assembly ; and in '76, 
became a State. She was always an undutiful child to the Penns ; and had she only 
thought so, would no doubt have been as well cared for by Maryland — to which she 
naturally and rightfully belongs — as she ever was by the Penns, or by herself. But, 
one member and two Senators, in Congress, are no mean privileges, to a representative 
population — free and slave, of 91,000, when the ratio for one Representative is 93,420 ! 
But who complains? She has given us some great men, and 77iay yet become the 
balance wheel of the Confederacy. 



LOSSES AND GAINS. 33 

of liis charter, was, to liave the northern confines of his provhice 
considerably restricted. Had the calls of his patent been fully 
answered, the Quaker City would inevitably have become, what 
Cresap called it, a "'pretty Maryland town." On the other hand, 
had his lordship been forced down fully to the line 40°, as it stood 
in 1632, and, indeed, until his and Markham's discovery in 1682, 
Maryland would have been cut in twain in the region of Hancock, 
and Western Maryland would have lain so far "backward" as to 
be wholly inaccessible to its proprietor by either land or '-water." 
If Penn had the advantage of Calvert in the misplaced position of 
40° in 1632, the latter had an available set-off in the requirement of 
Penn's patent of 1681, that the circular part of his boundary 
should reach the '■'■beginning of the fortieth degree," by a north- 
ward and westward course. Here, then, was a most inviting call to 
compromise, which would doubtless have been much sooner 
responded to, had it not been for the successive disabilities, of 
Lord Baltimore's privation of his province by William and Mary, 
from 1692 to 1716, Penn's death in 17lU, and the disputes as to 
his successors in the proprietorship, and the minority of one of 
them, until 1732. In this year, as we have seen, a compromise was 
agreed upon, which relieved both parties. Philadelphia was kept 
at the neighborly distance of fifteen miles from Maryland : and 
Lord Baltimore preserved a lane, of about a mile wide, at Hancock, 
for access to his iron and coal fields — then unknown and value- 
less — in the west. By this agreement, therefore, Maryland gave 
up not only her Delaware domain north of Henlopeu — which was 
in effect taken from her b}' the roj^al order in council of 1685 — 
but also a parallelogram of about nineteen and a quarter miles 
wide on her northern confines, extending from ISTew Castle county 
to the "meridian of the first fountain of the Potomac." This 
alone exceeds one-third of her entire present area, territorial and 
aqueous. With Delaware added, it exceeds one-half. So Mary- 
land has been largely the loser in this game of boundary. She is, 
however, quite a respectable sovereignty yet. 

But how has Pennsylvania fared in the play upon 40° ? Evidently 
she has gained the parallelogram which Maryland lost ; thereby 
restricting Lord Baltimore's two degrees of latitude to about sixty 
miles each,^^-" geographical," instead of "statute" degrees, as 
Pcnn wanted them to be in 1682. But she has also widened her 
own two degrees to about seventy-nine miles each. For in the 
adjustment of her northern boundary with New York, in 1774, 
and again in 1785, the trxie 42° — the " beginning of the forty -third 



34 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

degree," was adopted ; without any effort on the part of our 
northern neighbor to push us down to where that line of latitude 
was put in 1681 — if indeed it had any location at that period. No 
hint was given or taken of the old misplacement of 40° ; and thus 
Pennsylvania was allowed to hold, on the north, by the rule which 
Maryland sought in vain to enforce against her on the south. The 
value of this item of fortunate territorial expansion by Pennsyl- 
vania, is greatly enhanced by the access to Lake Erie which was 
thereby obtained. But for this, the Erie triangle'^ would probably 
never have been a purchasable annexation to our chartered ter- 
ritory. Thus far, therefore, Pennsylvania has been largely the 
gainer by her boundary troubles. The loss of Delaware has been 
more than compensated. In our next chapter, we will see that her 
good fortune, or superior diplomacy, attended her to the last. To 
one, or both, of these influences do we of much of south-western 
Pennsylvania owe it that we are not now Marylanders or Vir- 
ginians. 

Although not within th'e scope of these sketches, we are tempted 
here briefly to notice the boundary controversy with Connecticut, 
which Pennsylvania had to sustain from 176C to 1782.'' It inter- 
vened to postpone the settlement of our northern limits for more 
than ten years from the time it was undertaken, in 1774, and until 
rival colonies had become changed to fraternal States. 

The grant of Connecticut to Lords Say and Seal, and others, in 



-^ The Eric triangle was within the chartered limits of Massachusetts, which claimed 
three-quarters of a degree of New York, immediately north of 42°. New York held it, 
we believe, under a purchase from, and alliance with, the Six Nations of Indians. 
Both having ceded their western territory to the United States — New York in 1782, and 
Massachusetts in 1784 — the relative strength of their titles became an uniirportant 
inquiry. The New York cession was of all west of a due north line from the northern 
boundary of Pennsylvania, through the extreme west end of Lake Ontario, or twenty 
miles west of Niagara river, to north latitude 45° — thus taking in a considerable portion 
of Canada, to which her title proved rather unavailable. Pennsylvania first bought the 
triangle from the Indians, in 1789, forJ^1200, and then in 1792 from the United States 
for $151,640.25, continental certificates. This was done to get at the harbor of 
Presq'isle, at Erie, upon which the United States have since expended more than they 
got for it. The triangle contains 202,187 acres. See its history by Judge Huston in 
M'Call vs. Coover, 4 Watts and Sergeant's Reports, 151-164; and see 1 Olden 
Time, 557. 

*'^ The controversy lasted much longer in litigation and legislation, but this year ended 
the boundary part of it. See Huston's Land Titles, 14 ; 4 Journals of Vongress, (1782) 
129-140 ; 4 Pennsylvania Archives^ 679, &c., and other volumes, and Colonial Records, 
passim — indexed — Connecticut and Wyoming ; Day's Historical Collections of Pennsyl- 
Tania, *' Luzerne County," and authors there referred to. 



CONNECTICUT CONTROVERSY. 35 

1631, by the N"ew England Company, reached from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, or "South Sea;" hut, like itsparentgrant, there was 
excepted out of it any territory then in possession of any other 
Christian prince or State. This let in New York and New Jer- 
sey between her present western limits and the Delaware. So it 
was determined by a Board of King's Commissioners, in October, 
1664. But Connecticut reserved her claims west of the Delaware, 
thereby covering nearly all the forty-second, or most northern 
degree of latitude, which is within the subsequently chartered 
limits of Pennsylvania, and extending westward indefinitely.'^ 
It is said that, when Penn's grant was pending, he had notice of 
this claim of Connecticut, but that the king and he gave no heed 
to it, upon the ground that eighty years of neglect to people or pos- 
sess it, was to be considered as an abandonment. About 1753 " 
Connecticut began to reassert her claim, and sent settlers into the 
Wyoming valley. Within the ensuing twenty years the Connec- 
ticut settlements upon the east, or north branch of the Susque- 
hanna, became numeroiis and formidable. Their descendants and 
enterprise are there yet. Pennsylvania regarded these intrusions 
upon her territory with a jealous and angry eye. Conflicts ensued, 
personal, military, legal and judicial. Blood and treasure were 
freely expended. Our later colonial and early State annals, as 
well as our law books, are full of the controversy. At length, in 
1782, under the old articles of confederation, the dispute was 
referred for settlement to a committee of Congress, who sat as a 
court at Trenton, New Jersey, in the fall of that year. The parties 
were fully heard by their proofs and counsel. Connecticut relied 
upon her ancient parchments. Pennsylvania planted herself upon 
the laches of Connecticut, upon her own charter of 1681, and upon 
a score or more of Indian deeds to the Peuns.'* It was contended 
that the royal grants gave but a pre-emption right ; that the natives 
were the true proprietors; and, as the Penns had the Indian titles, 



23 Connecticut, in 178G, ceded all her western territory, north of 41°, and west of a 
due north line, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary of Pennsyl- 
vania, to the United States. Her "Western Reserve," in the north-cast corner of 
Ohio, was the one hundred and twenty miles westward of Pennsylvania, north of 41° 
nearly. In 1800, the United States offered to give her the soil, or the proceeds of sales, 
of this Reserve, she surrendering the jurisdiction, which was agreed to. 

"Connecticut had an Indian deed, also, obtained by one Lydius at Albany, in 1754 ; 
but it was pronounced surreptitious, illegal and fraudulent. It does not appear that it 
was relied on at the tiial. 



36 MASON AND DIXON's LINE. 

to which the commonwealth had succeeded, — by tacking these to 
the charter, the old abandoned pre-emption grant to Connecticut was 
" crushed out." The court so held. Its decision was unanimous in 
favor of Pennsylvania — the ever successful Pennsylvania, in all her 
boundary controversies. The way was now clear to fix and run a 
definitive line between Pennsylvania and New York ; and it was 
done, in 1785-6-7, upon the line of north latitude 42°. We return 
now, from this digression, to run our lines with Maryland. 

Eight years of almost uninterrupted labor were expended in 
running, measuring and marking these troublesome lines; and 
even then our line was left unfinished. For, except around IsTew 
Castle, and thence to the Susquehanna, the territories they traversed 
were dense forests, deep swamps and water courses, or rugged 
mountains; inhabited only by venomous reptiles and beasts of 
prey, with here and there the adventurous pioneer and roving 
Indian. Nor was geometrical science then the perfection that it 
now is. Its progress, if not so noisy as has been the march of 
material improvement over these then dreary wastes, has been not 
the less sure and surpassing. In those days accuracy was a rare 
achievement; and, when its closest possible approximation was 
demanded, much time and experiment had to be disbursed. The 
delays were, therefore, wrought by real difficulties. 

The commissioners on the part of each province having been 
duly appointed, and their surveyors selected, they met at New 
Castle, in November, 1760, and addressed themselves to their task 
iu earnest. They worked with unwonted harmony. Indeed, so 
specific, upon every department of their labors, had been the 
decrees and agreements, that there was no longer even a loop hole 
through which either party could evade compliance. All that 
remained was to measure and mark the lines, as commanded. The 
commissioners were seven for each proprietary,'-^ three of whom 
together were competent to act. The Penn surveyors at first 



® On the part of the Peuns they were Governor James Hamilton, Richard Peters, mem- 
ber and Secretary of Council ; Rev. John Swing, D. D., afterwards Provost of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania ; William Allen, Chief Justice ; Wm. Coleman, then a Justice : 
Thomas Willing, afterwards a Justice, and Benjamin Chcrc, afterwards Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court. Edward Shippen, Jr., Prothonotary of the Supreme Court, was also 
a member of the Board part of the time. The Maryland gentlemen were Governor 
Horatio Sharpe, J. Ridout, Jno. Leeds, Jno. Barclay, Geo. Stewart, Dan. of St. Thos. 
Jenifer, and J. Beale Boardley. The commissioners seem to have entrusted the line, 
west of the Susquehanna, entirely to the surveyors. 



MASON AND DIXOX. 37 

chosen were John Lukens,^^ afterwards Surveyor General of the 
Commonwealth, and Archibald M'Clean, of York, eldest brother 
of the late Col. Alexander M'Clean, of Fayette. Two others were 
named, but never acted. Those of Maryland were John F. A. 
Prio^o's and Jonathan Hall. 

The peninsular line, from Henlopen to the Chesapeake, was the 
only one which had been run under Lord Ilardvvicke's decree of 
1750. This had been agreed to be correctly run and measured, 
and its middle point fixed at thirty-four miles three hundred and 
nine perches.^^ It had also been agreed that the court house in 
New Castle should be the centre of the circle. Upon these data 
the surveyors proceed. ]^umerous "vistas" had to be cleared 
through the forests and morasses of the peninsula. Three years 
were diligently devoted to finding the bearing of the western line 
of Delaware, so as to make it a tangent to the circle, at the end of 
a twelve mile radius ; and a close approximation only was then 
attained. The instruments and appliances employed seem to have 
been those commonly used by surveyors. 

The proprietors, residing in or near London, grew weary of this 
slow progress, which, perhaps, they set down to the incompetency 
of their artists. To this groundless suspicion we owe their super- 
sedure, and the introduction of the men, 3Iason and Dixon, who, • 
unwittingly, have immortalized their memory in the name of the 
principal line which had yet to be run. 

Mason and^Ua«*i«e Dixon"* were astronomers of rising 



26 We believe that Mr. Liikens, who was an excellent officer, died in October, 1789, in 
Washington county, Pennsylvania; where, and in Beaver county, his descendants are 
yet found. ' He waslthe first Surveyor Genera,l.of ih^r^Commonwealth, from April, 1781, 
to his death. Col. Daniel-'Brodbeud succeeded him. 

2' The length of the west boundary of Delaware, from the'ttiltdle point to the tangent 
point on the circle, is eighty-two miles, minus six and one-eighth perche?. 

28 Mason had been an assistant in the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich. Both, prior 
to their service in America, it is said, had been at the Capo of Good Hope to make 
observations of an eclipse of the sun. It is certain they were there in 1769, to observe 
a transit of Venus across the sun's disc. Dixon is said to have been born in a coal pit. 
He died at Durham, in England, in 1777. Mason died near Philadelphia, in 1787. He 
•was probably the more scientific man of the two. From a careful study of their chi- 
rography and signatures, Mr. Latrobe infers that " Mason was a cool, deliberate, pains- 
taking man, never in a hurry ;" and that Dixon " was a younger and more active man, a 
man of an impatient spirit and nervous tempei-ament ; just such a man as worked best 
with a sober sided colleague." Their journal and letters, with a map of the lines, are 
preserved in manuscript at Annapolis. " Their letters are the merest business letters: 
their journal is the most naked of records." The Archives of Pennsylvania contain no 

4 



38 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

celebrity in London, in 1763. In Angust of that year they were 
employed by the Penns and Lord Baltimore to complete their lines. 
Furnished with instructions and the most approved instruments, 
among them a four feet zenith sector, they sail for Philadelphia, 
where they arrive in November. They go to work at once.^ They 
adopt the radius as measured by their predecessors ; and, after 
numerous tracings of the tangent line, adopt also their tangent 
point, from which they say they could not make the tangent line 
pass one inch to the eastward or westward. So that if the proprie- 
tors had only thought so, the rude sightings and chaiuings of the 
American surveyors would have been all right. They thereupon 
cause that line and point to be marked, and adjourn to Philadel- 
phia to find its southern limit, on Cedar, or South street. This 
they make to be^" north latitude 39^ 56' 29". They then proceed 
to extend that latitude sufficiently far to the west to be due north 
of the tangent point. Thence they measure down south fifteen 
miles to the latitude of the great due west line, and ran its paral- 
lel for a short distance. Then they go to the tangent point, and 
run due north to that latitude ; and at the point of intersection, 
in a deep ravine, near a spring, they cause to be planted the corner 
stone at which begins the celebrated "Mason and Dixon's Line." 
Having ascertained the latitude of this line to be 39° 43' 82",^^ 
they, under instructions, run its parallel to the Susquehanna — 
twenty-three miles; and, having verified the latitude there, they 
return to the tangent point, from w hi eh they run the due north line 
to the fifteen mile corner, and that pa'rt of the circle which it cuts 
oft" to the west, and which by the agreements, w^as to go to New 
Castle county.^* Where it cuts the circle is the corner of three 

u^o/vx ^n^jiCm*. (ffif U*-t /ten Ca^t^ ^et$». JffiSr^f 

counterpart of these. Even the agreement of 1760 ^s^aktsoia^. , Certified copies have 
supplied the place of ijamuk m-.iuy others of our old colonial papers. It is said that 
Joseph Shippen, Secretary to the Penn Governors, refused to give them up at the Revo- 
lution. Some have been recovered from his papers, and other sources. Those of Mary- 
land and New York have been better taken care of. The original agreement of 1732 is 
nowhere to be found. 

''^ Their first care was to have an observatory erected on Cedar street, Philadelphia, to 
facilitate the ascertainment of its latitude. It was the first building in America erected 
purposely from which "to read the skies." It was rude and hastily constructed, for 
they used it in January, 1764. 

30 The latitude of Philadelphia, at the State House, is 39° 56^ 59^^ 

3' More accurate ob.sei'vations make it 39° 43'' 2G.3 — consequently it is a little over 
nineteen miles south of 40°, as now located. 

3^ This little bow, or arc, is about a mile and a half long, and its middle width 116 
feet. From its upper end, where the three States join, to the fifteen mile point, where 



THROUGH THE FORESTS. 39 

dominions — an important point; and, therefore, tbey cause it to 
be well ascertained and well marked. This brings them to the 
end of 1764. 

They resume their labors upon the line in June, 1765. If to 
extend this parallel did not require so great skill as did the nice 
adjustments of the other lines and intersections, it summoned its 
performers to greater endurance. A tented arm}^ penetrates the 
forests, but their purposes are peaceful, and they move merrily. 
Besides the surveyors and their assistants, the Messrs. At'Clean — 
Archibald, Moses, Alexander^ and Samuel, and others, there had 
to be chain-bearers, rod-men, axe-men, commissaries, cooks and 
baggage carriers, with numerous servants and laborers, men of all 
work and camp followers of no work. By the 27th of October, 
they come to the North (Cove, or Kittatinny) mountain, 95 miles 
from the Susquehanna, and where the temporary line of 1739 ter- 
minated. After taking Captain Shelby with them to its summit, 
"to show them the course of the Potomac," and point out the 
Allegheny mountain,** the surveyors and their attendants return 
to the settlements to pass the winter, and to get their appoint- 
ment renewed. 

Early in 1766, they are again at their posts. They begin with 
an exhausted money chest, and having ascertained that the Penns 
had advanced c£615 more than Lord Baltimore, they send to Gov- 
ernor Sharpe, at Annapolis, for X600 or <£700, to be forwarded, 
"so that Mr. M'Lane may receive it at Fredericktown," the 24th 
of April. This obtained, they proceed. By the 4th of June, they 
are on the top of Little Allegheny mountain — the first west of 
Wills' creek. They have now carried the line about 160 miles 
from its beginning. The Indians, into whose. ungranted territory 
they had deeply penetrated, grow restive and threatening. They 



the great Mason and Dixon's line begins, is a little over three and a half miles ; and 
from the fifteen mile corner due east to the circle, is a little over three-quarters of a 
mile — room enough fur three or four good Chester county farms. This was the only 
part of the circle which Mason and Dixon run — Lord Baltimore having no concern in 
the residue. Penn had it run and marked with "four good notches." by "friends Isaac 
Taylor and Thomas Pierson," in 1700-'! ; but the trees are now nearly all gone, and it 
is hard to find. 

'^ See memoir of Colonel Alexander M'Clean, ante — Chap. VII. page 132. 

^ From this summit, the path of the Potomac through the mountains, to the south- 
west, is distinctly visible ; and the Allegheny crest — Big Savage — can be well seen. Old 
Fort Frederick, too, comes in for its share of the magnificent panorama It was built 
in 176G, and its ruins are yet in good preservation, a little east of Hanco'^k. 



40 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

thought this army, though bannerless, meant something. Their 
untutored minds could not comprehend this nightly gazing at the 
stars through gun-like instruments, and this daily felling of the 
forests across their hunting paths. They forbid any further 
advance, and they had to be obeyed. The artists return leisurely, 
and note, as they pass, the beauty of their "visto," which, they 
say, "^from any eminence on the line, where Hfteen or twenty 
miles can be seen, verj^ apparently shows itself to be a parallel of 
latitude." They are pleased with their work. 

The agents of the Proprietors now find that there are other 
lords of the soil whose favor must be propitiated. The Indians 
just at this time were deeply exercised upon some unsettled 
boundary questions between them and the whites, and were keenly 
sensitive to any anticipatory demarcations. The Six Nations, 
whose council tires blazed upon the Onondago and Mohawk, in 
Western JSTew York, were the lords paramount of the territory yet 
to be traversed. To obtain their consent to the consummation of 
the line, the Governors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, in the 
winter of 1767-'8, at an expense of more than .£500, procured, 
under the agency of Sir "William Johnson, a grand convocation of 
the tribes of that powerful confederacy. The application was suc- 
cessful ; and early in June, 1767, an escort of fourteen stroud-clad 
warriors, with an interpreter and a chief, deputed by the Iroquois 
council, met the surveyors and their camp at the summit of the 
Great Allegheny, to escort them down into the valley of the Ohio, 
whose tributaries they were soon to cross. 

Safety being thus secured, the extension of the line was pushed 
on vigorously in the summer of 1767. Soon the motley host of 
red and white men,, led by the London surveyors, come to the 
western limit of Maryland — " the meridian of the first fountain of 
the Potomac ;" and why they did not stop there is a mystery, for 
there their functions terminated.^^ But they pass it by unheeded, 



s* There is some evidence that ■svhcn Penn fisked for his grant, he intended it to go 
no further west thau Maryland. It is the only one of the oki royal grants which is limited 
by longitude. Its introduction was, perhaps, accidental, to square with his application 
iov five degrees of latitude. He could as readily have had it to reach to the Pacific. 

The general south-westward bearing of the Appalachian ranges of mountains, may well 
liave led the most knowing ones of that day to " guess " that " the meridian of the first 
fountain of the Potomac " might be much further west than it is. The prospect from the 
North mountain was very illusive. And yet one can hardly believe they would suppose 
that meridian to be west of the Mouongahela, and within fifteen miles of the Ohio. 

In a letter from Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania, to Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, 



THE CAIRN CORNER. 41 

because unknown, resolved to reach the utmost limit of Peun's 
"five deffrees of longitude " from the Delaware ; for so were they 
instructed. By the 24th of August, they come to the crossing of 
Braddock's road. The escort now become restless. The Mohawk 
chief and his nephew leave. The Shawnese and Delawares, 
tenants of the hunting grounds, begin to grow terrific. On the 
27th September, when encamped on the Monongahela, 233 miles 
from the Delaware, twenty-six of the laborers desert, and but 
fifteen axe-men are left. Being so near the goal, the surveyors — 
for none of the commissioners were with them — evince their 
courage by coolly sending back to Fort Cumberland for aid, and 
in the meantime they push on. At length they come to where the 
line crosses the Warrior branch of the old Catawba war path,^ at 
the second crossing of Dunkard creek, a little west of Mount 
Morris, in Greene ; and there the Indian escort say to them, " that 
they were instructed by their chiefs iu council not to let the line 
be run to the westward of that war path." Their commands are 
peremptory ; and there, for fifteen years, the line is stayed. It 
was afterwards ran out by other hands, as noted elsewhere in these 
sketches.^^ When completed, its terminus is a " cairn" of stones, 
on one of the slopes of the Fish creek hills, near the Board Tree 
tunnel of the Baltimore and Ohio rail road. " And, standing on 
the cairn, and looking to the east and north, a fresher growth of 
trees indicates the ranges of the vistas. But climb the highest 
tree adjacent to the cairn, that you may note the highest mountain 
within the range of vision, and then ascending its summit, take in 
the whole horizon, and seek for a single home of a single descend- 
ant of the sylvan monarchs, whose war path limited the surveys, 
and you will seek in vain. But go back to the cairn, and listen 
there, in the quiet of the woods, and a roll as of distant thunder 
will come unto the ear, and a shrill shriek will pierce it, as the 
monster and the miracle of modern ingenuity — excluded from 
Pennsylvania as eflfectually by the line we have described,. as the 
surveyors of old were by the Indian war path — rushes round the 



dated April, (1721,) he says — "You very well know, sir, that Pennsylvania, which is 
three degrees in breadth (?) and extends five degrees west of the river Delaware, must 
border upon his Majesty's dominion of Virginia to the westward of Maryland, and upon 
New York to the northward of New Jersey." This is the only avowed knowledge we 
have, prior to 17G8, of Pennsylvauia extendiag further west than Maryland. 

»«^See ante — " Indian Trails, &c." — Chap. III. 

'"See memoir of Col. Alexander M'Clean — ante, Chap. VII.; and "Boundary Contro- 
versy," ^os^ea, Chap. IX. 



42 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

soutli-westem angle of the State, on its waj^ from the city which 
perpetuates the title of the Lord Proprietory of Maryland, to find 
a breathing place on the Ohio, in the 'pan-handle' of Virginia."'® 

Mason and Dixon, with their pack-horse train and attendants,** 
return to the east without molestation, and report their discom- 
fiture to the "gentlemen commissioners," who approve their 
conduct, and, on the 27th December, 1767, grant to them an hon- 
orable discharge, but agree to pay them for a map or plan of their 
work, which they were instructed to prepare, and did prepare. 
The commissioners now address themselves to the erection of the 
required monuments, or stones, upon the lines, and at the corners 
and intersections around and near the "three counties" of Dela- 
ware. This done, they, on the 9th November, 1768, make their 
final report to the proprietaries; and here the labor upon these lines 
ends, in America, until after the titles of Baltimore and the Penns 
are wrested from them by the strong arm of revolution. 

In conformity to the agreements and the decree of the Chan- 
cellor, the lines were well marked. All the corners and intersec- 
tions were ascertained by firmly fixing thereat "one or more re- 
markable stones," on which were graven the arms of the propri- 
etors on the sides facing their possessions respectively. Along the 
lines, at the end of every fifth mile, a stone thus graven was planted, 
the intermediate miles being noted by a stone having M. on one 
side and P. on the other. Most of the stones on which the coats 
of arms were graven, were brought from England. On the great 
due west line — Mason and Dixon's line proper, this mode of de- 
marcation was used as far as the eastern base of Sideling Hill moun- 
tain, 132 miles from the spring corner. But the difiiculty of 
transporting the graven stones any further westward, compelled 
the surveyors to depart from the agreement, and to find their 
marks as they went along — no very difficult matter. From Side- 
ling Hill to the Great Allegheny summit, they denoted the 
line by conical heaps of earth or stones, six or seven feet high, on 
the tops of all the ridgee and mountains. From the summit of the 



j8 Mr. Latrobe's lecture, before quoted. See ante, note 12. 

39 Among these, besides the Messrs. M' Clean, were Hugh Crawford, the old Indian 
trader, who, for his services, got a grant of part of Col. Evans' estate, {ante. Chap. VI. 
note 12,) and Paul Larsh, of George's creek, father of Hannah, the wife of Joseph Baker, 
of Nicholson township, who was the widow of George Gans. See Larsh vs. Larsh, Ad- 
dison's Reports, 310. Old John Tate, of Eedstonc, is said also to have been of the com- 
pany. 



NEW TROUBLES ARISE. 43 

Allegheny westward, as far as they went, similar marks were 
erected at the end of every mile, with a post inserted in each. 

The " visto" of the line was opened twenty-four feet wide, by 
felling all the trees and large bushes, which were left to rot upon 
the ground. The monuments of the lino were erected along the 
middle of this pathway, in the true parallel. 

The instruments used by Mason and Dixon were an ordinary 
surveyor's compass, to find their bearings generally, a quadrant, 
and the four feet zenith sector which they brought from London, 
for absolute accuracy. The ferruginous character of much of the 
territory they traversed, forbid much reliance upon the needle. 
The sector enabled them to be guided by the unerring luminaries 
of the heavens. 

The measurements were made with a four pole chain of one 
hundred links each, except that, on hills and mountains, one of 
two poles, and sometimes a one pole measure, was used. These 
were frequently tested by a statute chain carried along for that 
purpose. Great care was enjoined as to the plumbings upon 
uneven ground ; and, so far as they have been since tested, the 
measurements seem to have been very true. 

While the surveyors were in progress upon the line, the Propri- 
etors humbly besought his Majesty, George III., to allow and 
approve their agreement of 1760, and the confirmatory decree of 
the Chancellor thereon, to the end that his Majesty's subjects in- 
habiting the disputed lands might have their minds quieted. His 
Majesty deferred his approval until January, 1769, after the lines 
had been completed and the final report of the commissioners 
made. Even all this, however, did not quite end the disturbances. 
Says Governor John Penn, in 1774: — "The people living between 
the ancient temporary line of jurisdiction, and that lately settled 
and marked by the commissioners, were in a lawless state. Mur- 
ders, and the most outrageous transgressions of law and order, 
were committed with impunity in those places. In vain did 
persons injured apply to the government of Maryland for protec- 
tion and redress." This, of course, refers to the little strip of a 
quarter of a mile in width along the southern confines of York, 
Adams and Franklin. Thirty years had caused the temporary 
line to be deemed the permanent boundaiy — the common fate of 
accommodation lines between adjoining land owners. 

Nor was this quite all. In 1771, Frederick, Lord Baltimore, 
died, and his heir was a minor under guardianship. And when, 
in 1774, Governor Penn, under stress of the "lawless state" of his 



44 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

south-western frontier, made proclamation of liis purpose to extend 
and enforce his jurisdiction "quite home" to the established line, 
his young lordship's guardian was induced to ask the king to 
arrest the Gov'ernor's proceedings, upon the grounds that the 
Maryland proprietary had not capacity to concur in the ratification 
of the line, and that his subjects settled on the frontiers, knowing 
this', would resort to violence and bloodshed. The partisans of 
Virginia — who were now carrying on her boundary war with the 
Penns — had perhaps more to do with this groundless interference 
than bad tlie friends of the infant Lord Baltimore. When the 
king was apprized that the line had been run, marked, reported 
and confirmed, in pursuance of Frederick's agreement, and all 
done in his lifetime, he "graciously" recalled his countermand of 
(jrovernor Penn's proclamation. And now, finally, and, as we 
trust forever, Maryland and Pennsylvania are at peace. The two 
oldest and most contiguous sovereignties carved out of ancient New 
England and Virginia — the "North" and the "South," resume 
their primitive peaceful repose upon the line — this famous Mason 
and Dixon's Line — which is the agreed substitute for the ancient 
40°. 

The width of a degree of longitude varies according to the lati- 
tude it traverses — expanding towards the equator, and contracting 
towards the pole. In the latitude of our line. Mason and Dixon 
computed it at fifty-three miles and one hundred and sixty-seven 
and one-tenth perches. They consequently made Penn's five 
degrees of longitude from the Delaware to be two hundred and 
sixty-seven miles and one hundred and ninety-five and six-tenth 
perches.^ To their stopping place at the war path on Dunkard, 
they say, was two hundred and forty-four miles one hundred and 
thirteen perches and seven and one-fourth feet. Hence they 
left, as they computed it, twenty-three miles and eighty-three 
perches to be run. It was subsequently ascertained that this was 
about a mile and a half too much — a discovery which created some 
inconvenience upon the western line of Greene county." 

We have seen no evidence that Mason and Dixon actually mea- 
sured the distance from the Delaware to where they began the due 



^"It seems it should have been only two hundred and sixty-six miles ninety-nine and 
one-fifth perches; and so we say it was found to be hy the survey ors of 1781, in our 
note (4) to Jlemoir of Col. Alex. W Clean— ante, Chapter VII. But that is Col. Graham's 
estimate in 1849. We have not found what it was made to be, in 1784. 

*' See note (4) referred to in note 40, and note 42. 



DISTANCES AND LOCALITIES. 45 

west line at the stone near the spring. But they, or some others 
for them, must have done so, for it is part of the five degrees of 
longitude. They estimated it at fourteen miles forty perches and 
ten feet. The mile-stones upon the line are numbered according 
to their distance from the north-cast corner of Maryland — the 
spring corner — instead of from the Delaware. This has created 
some confusion and misapprehension as to the length of the line. 
Our most approved State map — Barnes', of 1848 — has them so 
numbered with great apparent accuracy ; although not always 
coinciding with other notations of distances upon the line.^- 

The line crosses the Cumberland, or National road, about three 
miles south-east of Petersburg; the Youghiogheny about three 
miles south of Somerfield ; the Cheat at the mouth of Grassy run, 
(the line ford) ; the Monongahela near the mouth of Crooked run. 

The north-west corner of Maryland, upon this line, is near the 
road from Haydentown to Selbysport, or Friend's, about half a mile 
west of the intersection of Henry Clay and Wharton townships ; 
being about one hundred and ninety-nine miles west of her north- 
east corner, and about fifty-four miles east of the south-west corner 
of Pennsylvania ; or, one degree of longitude short of our western 
confine. 

Very many of the marks and monuments upon the line have 
been removed, or have crumbled down ; and its visia is so much 
grown up as to be hardly distinguishable from the adjacent forests. 
It should be re-traced and re-marked. Except in part of Greene 
county, all the original surveys of lands upon the line were made 
after it was authoritatively fixed. Hence no inconvenience or 
trouble has yet arisen from its partial obliteration. But one of the 
best securities for peace between neighbors is to keep up good 
division fences. 



*' The surveyors of 1739 made the distance from the Susquehanna to " the top of the 
most western of the Kittochtinny hills," (the North or CoTe mountain,) only eighty- 
eight miles. The map shows it to be nearly one hundred. 

The map makes the line cross the Monongahela at about two hundred and nineteen 
and a half, or two hundred and thirty-three and a half, from the Delaware, which accords 
with Mason and Dixon. But our Book of Official Surveys, made in 178G, shows the 
following mile posts east of the river, viz : the two hundred and twenty-second on the 
south line of the old Samuel Bowen tract ; the two hundred and twenty-first about half 
way in the south line of the old Robert Henderson tract; the two hundred and twentieth 
about the middle of the south line of the John M'Farland tract — the Ferry tract. There 
was then a pile of stones in the line, on the river hill, near the south-west corner of the 
Bowen tract. Col. M'Clean run these tracts, and he is presumed to have known the 
marks. There is error somewhere. The line then (I78G) bore south 89^ west. 



46 MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 

Some troubles did grow out of a removal of some of the monu- 
ments upon the eastern parts of the lines. Many years ago the 
"remarkable stone" which marked the south-west corner of 
Delaware was dug up in one of the fruitless searches for the buried 
treasure of Captain Kidd ; and at a later period the stone near the 
spring, which marks the north-east corner of Maryland, having 
been undermined by floods and fallen, was taken by a neighboring 
farmer for a chinmey-piece, and a post planted in its place. Sur- 
mises sprung up that some others of the stones w^hich defined the 
limits of the little State had been displaced. Many of the dwellers 
around the notch and circle seemed not to know to whom they 
belonged. These doubts and dilapidations induced the three 
States of Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, in 1849, to 
create a joint commission to re-trace the lines in that vicinity, and 
replace the missing monuments. The commissioners procured 
Lieut. Col. James D. Graham, of the corps of Topographical 
Engineers of the United States, to execute the work. He of 
course had to review much of the labors of Mason and Dixon and 
their predecessors. Generally he found that remarkable accuracy 
characterized those early displays of geometrical science. The 
post near the spring was in the right place, and the courses all 
right. Some errors were, however, detected. Some of the miles 
had been made a few feet too long. The radius was found to be 
two feet four inches too short; and by some errors in locating the 
tangent point, and the junction of the three States at the point of 
the notch, or bead, it was found that Maryland had got back from 
Delaware a little over one acre and three-quarters of what she had 
lost by King James' order, in 1685. Even these trifling errors 
prove the wonderful certainty of mathematical science. Colonel 
Graham's labors wrought a change in the allegiance of several 
gentlemen residing near the circle, who had hitherto supposed 
themselves citizens of Delaware. A Mr. William Smith, who had 
been a member of the Legislature of that State, was found to be a 
full half mile within Pennsylvania; which also took in the old 
Christiana church by a hundred yards.^ 

It is ever thus with all things terrestrial. Men change and are 
changed. Monuments crumble and are removed. Even " a thing 
of beauty is not a joy forever." Decay and renewal are the constant 



^ See the curious and learned report of Colonel Graham, with other documents, in 
Senate Journal of Pennsylvania, 1850, vol. 2, page 476. 



MUTATIONS OF BOUNDARY. 47 

succession of human affairs and human structures. The marks of 
boundary cannot escape this destiny. No art, no care, can preserve 
them as they were- The limits of empire which nature estab- 
lishes are not unvarying. Eivers change their channels — the 
soil of one State becomes the delta of another — and ocean takes 
away from continents, to be compensated by new islands in the 
watery waste. An assurance of permanency, and of enduring 
peace upon its borders, may be derived from the purely arbitrary 
origin of our Line — that in its establishment Nature had no 
agency ; for 

"Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 
Make enemies of nations, who had else, 
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one." 

To comprehend the subject of this sketch, we have had to course 
over more than three centuries of this world's history, baiting here 
and there to gather up and arrange the events which relate to it. 
It is more than two hundred years since the seeds of the strife 
were sown, of which the line is the harvest; and nearly a century 
has run since the surveyors were running its thread through the 
forests. Within those periods what great events have transpired. 
Civilization, science, freedom, religion and population have rolled 
their resistless tides over this continent. Empires have risen and 
fallen ; dynasties have sunk into nothingness. Yet this line stands ; 
and its story increases in interest as time grows older. Nor is 
its history yet ended. God grant that it may never have to be 
written of it that it severed this glorious Union ! What is yet to 
be said of it now belongs to our next chapter ; for " westward the 
course of empire takes its way," and with it goes its boundary 
controversies. 



SUPPLEMENT. 



BOUNDARY COiNTROVEKSY WITH VIRGINIA, 



The further history of this celebrated line belongs to another of 
the controversies through which Pennsylvania has had to pass to 
establish her boundaries. We refer to that which the peculiarities 
of her charter and the stirring events in the south-Western corner 
of the province, during the twenty years preceding 1774, brought 
to a head between her and Virginia, just as the great contest 
between the crown and the colonies was heading up to revolution, 
which pervaded the entire period of that eventful struggle, and 
terminated almost cotemporaneotisly with its successful close. 

"We cannot here narrate the events, or unfold fully the grounds 
of that once portentous strife. Its scope is too ample, and its 
amplitude too full of interesting and instructive teachings, to bear 
compression into what must be a mere appendage to the preceding 
sketch. The great subject to which it related was the extent and 
shape of our limits westward. We limit our design now to such 
an exposition only of its leading features as will fill out the history 
of our southern boundary. About four-fifths of the line was the 
result of a compromise to which Virginia was no party. ISTorth of 
38° and the Potomac, she had to be silent. But west of the 
"meridian of the first fountain" of that river, she lifted up her 
voice loudly against " northern aggression;" not, however, as we 
shall see, toiler very lasting advantage. 

As a colonial grant, Virginia never had any rights north of 40°. 
And upon her decapitation, by quo warranto, in 1624, she became a 
mere appendage of English empire, without any fixed boundaries, 
subject to having her limits impaired as often as it should please 
his Majesty to confer new grants out of her original domain. 
Maryland and ITorth Carolina are thus derived. And yet, both as a 
colony and as a State, she has kept up continual claim to territory 
north of 40°. The "pan-handle" still rears its head above the 
40th degree ; and the doubtful recognition, since 1780, of her 

r 



ITS BEGINNINGS. 49 

vaunted claim to the great territory north-west of the Ohio and east 
of the Mississippi, attests her pretensions in that direction.^ AVith 
this we have here nothing to do. But we may well challenge lier 
right to intrude within the limits of a specific grant carved out of 
territory which she never owned. Indeed, she claimed that the 
extinction of her charter enlarged her bounds ; that thereupon she 
became keeper for the king of all contiguous jterritory not right- 
fully held by some, other colony. It was 'upon this pretense that 
she assailed Pennsylvania. Tlie posture was plausible enough 
during her colonial vassalage. But upon her revolt from her 
kingly allegiance — asserting existence as an independent State — 
she forfeited her vice-regal prerogatives, and became shut up to the 
territory which, without encroachment upon her neighbors' she 
had settled ^nd governed. And yet Pennsylvania had to contend 
with her in both these characters. 

The site of Pittsburgh, and the Indian trade which centred 
there, became early the objects of Virginia cupidity. Her efforts 
to acquire these brought on the French war of 1754-'63, in which 
Washington rose and Braddock fell. It was Upon the laggard 
defence, and almost abnegation of ownersnip, of her ultramontane 
territory, by Pennsylvania, in the early stages of this war, that 
Virginia based her claim as the king's representative. She turned 
upon the sons of Penn the battery which he, in 1682, raised against 
Lord Baltimore's right to Delaware. The position taken was that 
the Penns, by suffering the French to conquer all west of the 
mountains, thereby rendering it necessar}^ that it should Be re-con- 
quered by his Majesty's arms, had forfeited, to that extent, their 
chartered limits ; and that upon its retrocession by France to the 
British king, ih 1763, it became his again "to give as he pleaseth." 
The argument, when tested by the rules of right and the truth of 
history, turns out* to be more specious than solid. It was soon 
superseded by other pretexts which were thought to possess greater 
potency. 

The natural connections of South-western Pennsylvania were 
with Maryland and Virginia. These were greatly strengthened 
by the opening of the old Ohio Company's path, afterwards Brad- 



^ We are aware that we are treading here upon tender ground. But, were tliis the 
place to do it, it could readily be shown that tlio postulate of Mr. Chief Justice Tan^, 
in Dred Scott vs. Sandford — that /'this immense tract of country was Avitliia jthe 
acknowledged limils of the State of Virginia," is an entire reversal ofthe tVutJi of. 
history. Her claim was onl// a daim, an<l so regarded by the old Coufederacy Congress. 



50 VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 

clock's road, from Wills' creek, (Cumberland,) to the head of the 
Ohio, and the events of the French war. The early settlers came 
almost wholly from middle Virginia and Maryland, upon the 
Potomac, bringing with them a hereditary dislike to Pennsylvania 
rule and manners, and squatting down upon what they supposed 
was Virginia territory. Hence when, in 1769, the Penns began to 
sell their lands at £5 per one hundred acres, and, in 1771, by the 
erection of Bedford county, extended over them the arms of gov- 
ernment, with its restraints and taxes, repugnance soon rose to 
resistance. 

At this opportune crisis Virginia, under the governorship of 
Lord Dunmore, late in 1773, interposed to assert her jurisdiction. 
The disputed territory was made the western district of Augusta 
county, with .Fort Pitt as the seat of dominion. The invasion was 
at once both civil and military. Early in the same year Pennsyl- 
vania had erected the county of Westmoreland over all her western 
territory, with her seat of justice at Hannastown. At tirst the' 
conflict was fierce and alarming His lordship, finding a fit instru- 
ment of mischief in one Doctor John Connolly,^ ^ith numerous 
subordinates and a ready populace, 'held his usurped possession 
with unyielding tenacity. Pennsylvania oflScers were contemned 
and resisted, her justices imprisoned, her jail broken open, and her 
courts broken up. Vagaries and enormities were for a while 
enacted which find no parallel in any other period of our western 
history. To quell the tumult of the times, the Penns had recourse 
to negotiation ; but without any other result than to disclose more 
fully the conflicting claims of the parties. 

The reader will remember that the only fixed, natural landmarks 
named in the charter, by which to determine the form and extent 
of Pennsylvania, were i^ew Castle town and the river Delaware. 
The latter was her eastern bounds ; while the former was to be 
used as the centre of a circle of twelve miles radius, whose north- 
western segment was to connect the river with the '•^beginning of 
the 40th degree." Westward, the province was to extend '' five 
degrees in longitude to be computed from said eastei'ii bounds." 

The Penns now claimed, for their western boundary, a line 



^ As an adventurer — tool of Dunmore — instigator of Indian war — Tory — prisoner — 
and in 1788, fomentor of troubles in Kentucky, the life of this renegade sou of Peinisyl- 
Tania is one of peril and mischief. The curious reader may trace him in Washingtoii's 
Journal, 1770, Nov. 22. — 4 Pa. Archives, Index -'Connolly'' — 1 Oldm Time, 520 — 
2 Ditto, 93-3 Sparks' Washington, 211, 269, 271—8 Ditto, 25—9 Ddlo, 47-1, 485— 
Western Annals, 492. 



BOUNDAKIES PROPOSED. 51 

beginning at 39°, at the distance of five degrees of longitude from 
the Delaware, thence at the same distance from that river in every 
point, to north latitude 42°, so as to take into the Quaker province 
some fifty miles square of North-western Virginia, weslr of the 
west line of Maryland. Dunmore scout*ed this claim and difficult- 
to-be-ascertained line. He insisted that our western boundary 
should be a meridian line run south from the end of five degrees of 
longitude from the Delaware, on line 42°; wKich, said he, will 
throw the western line of Pennsylvania at least fifty miles east of 
Pittsburgh. This pretense was based upon the belief that the 
Delaware continued to 42° the north-eastward bearing, which 
changes to north-west at the eastern corner of Pike county — so 
little was then known of our interior geography. The next expe- 
dient by the Penns was to propose Mason and Dixon's line to the 
Monongahela, and thence that river to the Ohio, as a temporary 
boandary.^ This, too, was rejected; his lordship saying that upon 
nothing less than his Majesty's express command would he relin- 
quish Pittsburgh. Here negotiation ended; ai)d violence and 
oppression continued their sway, until checked up by more ab- 
sorbing interests. 

The outburst of the Revolution, in 1775, and the fall of the 
Dunmore dynasty, produced a lull in the storm of iuter-coloiiial 
strife? * Partisans became patriots, and rushed with eagerness to 
repel a common foe. For a brief period the civil jurisdiction of 
Pennsylvania seems to have been yielded. Military control was 
all that Virginia exercised. But this blending of incoherent pre- 
tensions could not long endure. It severed as soon as the first 
intense fervors of revolution had cooled down into an earnest 
struggle for independence. 

And now Virginia behaved towards Pennsylvania with an in- 
consistency, if not cool vindictiveness, without precedent or pal- 
liation. On the 15th of June, 1776, her revolutionary convention, 
justly deprecating the conflict of jurisdiction in the disputed terri- 
tory, proposed to Pennsylvania a ienvporary boundary, which, they 



8 As the Peuns claimed it, not far from the true line; which would have 'eft Pitts- 
burgh about six miles iu PenDsylvania. 

* Among the most resolute of the Penn adherents were, Arthur St. Clair, then Pro- 
tb iiiatmy, &c. nf Westmoreland, afterwards Major General, &c. and Thomas Scott, after- 
w lids first Prothonatory of Washington, tnd first member of Congress from Western 
Penn-ylvania. Of the Virginia partisans were Dorscy Pentecost, afterwards Clerk of 
Yob'igania county, first member from Washington in Sup. Ex. Council of Pa.; Colonel 
William Crawford, who was burnt by the Ohio Indians in 1782 ; Colonel John Campbell, 
afterwards prominent in Kentucky ; George Croghan, Indian agent, &c. 



52 Virginia controversy. 

said, " would most nearly leave the inhabitants in the country 
they settled under;" which boundary is as follows : from the north- 
west corner of Maryland to Braddock's road — by it to the Great 
Crossings of the Youghiogheny — down that river to Chesnut Ridge 
mountain — along its crest to Greenlic*k run branch of Jacob's creek 
— down it to where 'Braddock's toad crossed — by the road and its 
continuation towards Pittsburgh to the Bullock Pens [a little north- 
west of Wilkinsburg], and thence a straight'line to the mouth of 
Plum run [creek] on the Allegheny ! East of this Pennsylvania 
was to rule — west of it, Virginia. The Pennsylvania convention, 
in September, 1776, very'properly rejected this proposal; because, 
being very wide of her true limits, its adoption as a temporary 
line would be productive of more confusion than if it was to be final. 

Ere the rejection of this preposterous proposition, the same 
Virginia convention that made it had, on the 29th of June, 1776, 
by her constitution, expressly "ceded, released and forever con- 
firmed unto the people of Pennsylvania, all the territory contained 
in her charter, with all the rights of property, jurisdiction and 
government which might at any time heretofore have been claimed 
by Virginia." At this time she well knew, from Mason and 
Dixon's measurements and otherwise, that much of the chartered 
limits of Pennsylvania must fall west of the proposed line, while 
no Virginia territory could lie east of it. Nevertheless, during the 
further progress of the controversy she conformed her jurisdiction 
very nearly to this rejected line. 

The next movement by Virginia was a bold stride at dominion. 
Assuming that Pennsylvania, as well as Maryland, should not reach 
further west than the " meridian of the first fountain of the Poto- 
mac," she, by an Act of her Assembly, passed in October, 1776, 
proceeded to define the boundary between her cast and west 
Augusta districts ; and having annexed some inconsiderable parts of 
her now north-western counties, and all of Pennsylvania west of 
the aforesaid meridian, to the latter, divided it into three counties — 
Ohio, Monongalia and Yohogania. Nearly all of the last and much 
of the other two were composed of Pennsylvania territory. The 
last took in what are now the county seats of Washington, Fayette, 
Westmoreland and Allegheny, and all north of them. Under this 
law, justices' courts were regularly held^ — senators and delegates 
to the Viro;iuia Legislature chosen, and all the other fanetions 



* The Yohogania courts were held in the upper story of a log jail and court house, 
24 by 16 feet, on the farm of Andrew Heath, upon the Monongahela, at or near where 
Elizabeth now is. VVc have, seen itf Minutes. It did a large and varied business. 



THE PARTIES AGREE. 53 

of government, civil and military, exercised, from 1776 to 1780. 
In the meantime Pennsylvania kept up her power, as well as she 
could, through her Westmoreland county organization, over the 
whole of her territory as she claimed it. There was literally an 
imperium in imperio, especially between Braddock's road" and the 
Monongahela, which was perhaps the most densely settled portion 
of the disputed territory. "West of that river, except here and there 
upon its western shore and the south-east corner of Greene, Penn- 
sylvania did. not venture. jN'or did she ever intrude her functions 
south of Mason and Dixon's line. 

The machinery of the new district counties^ worked badly, espe- 
cially in its military movements, which at that warlike period were 
of primary importance. This, and a returning sense of justice, 
induced Virginia, in December, 1776, to propose an adjustment of 
the lines, as follows : extend the west line of Maryland due nQvth 
to 40° — thence due west to the limit of five degrees of longitude from 
the Delaware — thence northward, at five degrees distance from that 
river in every part ; or, if preferred, at proper points and angles with 
intermediate straight lines, to 42°: — thus cutting "a monstrous hantle 
out" of south-western Pennsylvania — overleaping the ancient 40°, 
but yielding to the Penn claim of 1774, which Dunmore so stoutly 
resisted. There would have been some force in this claim of Vir- 
ginia -to go up to the true 40°, had her charter of 1609 not been 
recalled ; for it bounded her on the north, not by a degree of lat- 
itude, as was Maryland, but by two hundred miles of coast-lin© 
northward from Point Comfort. But as between Penn and the 
king, in 1681, the 40° of that day was the true limit of the grant. 
This ofier was rejected also. 

The disheartening reverses and exhausting efibrts of the Revo- 
lutionary struggle, during 1777 and 1778, withdrew the disputants 
from any attention to their boundary troubles. For a while the 
strife stood still, except that its inconveniences and confiicts upon 
the disputed territory were as perplexing as ever. Brighter aus- 
pices dawned in 1779. Early in that year Pennsylvania proposed 
to Virginia a joint commission to agree upon their boundaries. 
The latter acceded. The commissioners met in Baltimore, and 
on the 31st of August, 1779, agreed upon the following boundaries:' 
"to extend Mason and Dixon's line due west five degrees of 



8 The Pennsylvania commissioners were, George Bryan, Rev. John Ewing, D. D., and 
David Rittenhouse ; Virginia sent Right Rev. James Madison and Rev. llobert AadrewB. 
5 



54 VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 

longitude, to be computed from the river Delaware, for the 
•southern boundary of Pennsylvania; and that a meridian, drawn 
from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of said 
State, be the western boundary of Pennsylvania forever." 

"We know but little of what occurred at the meeting of these 
commissioners.^ A letter is extant from one of the Pennsylvania 
commissioners — Judge Bryan — saying that the Virginians offered 
to divide equally the 40th degree ; but for what equivalent is not 
revealed.' There is a tradition, too, that the Judge resisted an offer 
to extend Mason and Dixon's line to the Ohio. . Doubtless tliis,gen- 
erosity on the part of Virginia was to be compensated north of that 
river. It is probable that, in this negotiation, the parties stood pretty 
much where they did in May, 1774 — Pennsylvania claiming down to 
39°, and to have her western line an irregular curvilinear parallel 
to the Delaware,* and Virginia claiming to stop her, on the south, 
at 40°. The idea of making our western boundary to be a straight 
line, or chord, subtending the irregular arc formed by the two 
extremes of five degrees from the Delaware, on the north and on 
the south, seems never, at any time, to have been claimed or pro- 
posed.^^^ A chancellor might have so decreed without any violence 
to the charter. One is almost tempted to regret that the Pennsyl- 
vania commissioners had not claimed to turn round at Fair/ax's 
stone and asked for all of Virginia nOrth of 39°. They had as good 
ground for the whole as for part. And who knows but jthat a little 
more expanded pretensions in that direction might have induced 
the Virginians to give us the "pan-handle!" We must not, how- 
ever, complain. They did exceedingly well. They probably did 
not know that there would be room there to turn® north of 39°. 
And it is fortunate that Virginia did not know that when Pennsyl- 
vania, in 1771, erected Bedford county, she expressly recognized 
the ex parte extension of Mason and Dixon's line, west of Maryland, 
as her southern boundary. 

But the troubles were not yet ended. The agreement of the 
commissioners had to be ratified, and the lines to be run. Penn- 



» See 1 Olde7i Time, 451^ 

8 The late Judge H. II. Brackenridge (Law Miscellanies, 254,) reverses this position 
of the parties. His views of the subject are palpably erroneous in other particulars ; 
hence, vei y probably, in this also. If the parties stood as he places them, Pennsylvania 
got more than she claimed. 

9 It was at this date an open question whether Maryland would not begin her western 
line at the "first fountain" of the Sotith branch of the Potomac. 



TEMPORARY LINE. 55 

sylvania promptly assented to the "compromise" in November, 
1779 — as well she might, seeing that it expanded her western ter- 
ritory fall half a degree without any equivalent loss on the south. 
Virginia, perhaps, seeing this, held back ; and in December, 1779, 
sent into the disputed territory a co.art of commissipners to adjust 
land titles. JSTo event in the whole controversy so roused the ire 
of Pennsylvania as did this attempt to dispossess her *own settlers 
and adjudicate their laud's to claimants whJ had defied her juris- 
diction. A very determined intimation th^ a continuance of the 
intrusion would be repelled by force, led to its withdrawal. There- 
upon, in June, 1780, Virginia ratified the agreement; clogging it, 
however, with a condition which protected all the rights to persons 
and property which her settlers had acquired prior to that date, 
providing thajt rights to lauds should be determined by priority of 
title or settl'^meut, and be paid for to Pennsylvania at Virginia 
prices, if acquired from her. Under these provisions many land titles 
in South-western Pennsylvania are held by patents based upon Vir- 
ginia certificates, and west of the Monongahela there are many 
Virginia patents. They conduced to many troubles and hardships. 
Pennsylvania foresaw that such would be their fruits ; and, therefore, 
for a while withheld her assent ; but at length, in September, 1780, 
declaring herself " determined to give to the world the most une- 
quivocal proof of her earnest desire to promote peace and harmony 
with a sister State, so necessary during this great contest against 
the common enemy," assented to the unequal condition. And here 
this boundary controversy closed — the last of the series which Penn- 
sylvania has had to encounter. 

It remained yet to run and mark the lines. This it was intended 
to do, in 1781, permanently; but the pressure of the "great war of 
liberty" compelled its postponement. The withdrawal of Virginia, 
in 1780, from the disputed and ceded territory, called for the erection 
by Pennsylvania, in 1781, of the county of Washington, comprising 
all of the State west of the Monongahela and south-west of the 
Ohio. This new organization imperatively demanded some ascer- 
tainment of its b'^undaries on its two A'^irginia sides. A promise 
of a joint eiFort to do this, by a temporary line, in the fall of that 
year, failed of accomplishment on the part of Virginia. It was run 
in Kovember, 1782, by Col. Alex. M'Clean, of Fayette, (then West- 
moreland,) and Joseph Neville, of Virginia, from the war path 
crossing of Dunkard to the corner, and thence to the Ohio. They 
were instructed to extend Mason and Dixon's line twenty-three miles, 
which proved to be about a mile and a half too much ; — an error 



56 VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 

which occasioned some loss to certain Philadelphia gentlemen — the 
Cooks, and perhaps others, who, before the final running of the 
lines, had caused some land-warrants to be laid, abutting upon the 
temfjorary line, on the western border of, now, Greene county. Less 
than twenty-two miles were wanting to complete the distance of the 
charter. 

Pending these delays Pennsylvania had no little trouble with many 
of her newly-acquired' Washington count}^ citizens, who hated her 
rule and resisted their transfer. They asked Congress, under a 
provision in the old Articles of Confederation, to establish the cur- 
vilinear parallel with the Delaware, which would restore them to 
Virginia. Their petitions were unheeded. Whereupon they went 
deeply into a project for a 7ieiD State, which was to include Western 
Pennsylvania, Ohio east of the Muskingum, and Virginia north- 
east of the Kenhawa, with Pittsburgh as the seat of empire. It 
was a resurrection of the old " Walpole grant" of 1772.^" So rife 
had the scheme become, that Pennsylvania had to counteract it by 
all her power, declaring it, by an Act passed in December, 1782, to 
be treason. In many other ways her authority was contemne^d, her 
laws resisted, and her officers .defied and maltreated. Especially 
was this the case with her odious excisi\2t,\y. And in the resistance 
which it encountered is found the precedents for many of the ex- 
cesses of the renowned "Whiskey Insurrection." Gradually, how- 
ever, and by countervailing infusions of a more thorough Pennsyl- 
vania population, the disafl'eetion receded; and no where, for at 
least half a century, has any people been more proud of their gov- 
ernment, or more submissive to its requirements. 

It was not until 1784 that Mason and Dixon's line was completed, 
upon astronomical observations, and permanently marked. The 
great difficulty — the nice point, was to fix its western termination. 
To do this, some of the most scientific men of that day were em- 
ployed. On the part of Virginia they were the Eight Rev. James 
Madison, Bishop of Virginia, Rev. Robert Andrews, John Page 
and Andrew EUicott, of Maryland. , The Pennsylvania commis- 
sioners were John Liikens, Surveyor General, Rev. John Ewing, 
D. D., David Rittenhouse and Thomas Ilutchins. They undertook 



'"Concerning " Walpole's grant," see 2 Sparks' Washington, 356-7, and 483 — Sparks 
Life of Franklin, 339—3 Journals of Old Congress, 359—4 Ditto, 23—4 Pa. Arch. 483 
579. On the New State project, see 2 Olden Time, 479, 537— Braekenridge's Lay 
Miscell. 511—9 Pa. Arch. 233, 315, 324, 438, 444, 565, 572, 637— 10 Ditto, 40, 41 
163. 



THE ASTRONOMERS. 57 

the task from "an anxious desire," they say, "to gratify the astro- 
nomical world in the performance of a problem which has never 
yet been attempted in any country, and to prevent the State of. 
Pennsylvania from the chance of losing many hundred thous- 
ands of acres secured to it by the agreement at Baltimore." To 
solve the novel problem, two of the artists of each State, pro- 
vided with the 'proper astronomical instruments and a good time- 
piece, repaired to Wilmington, Delaware — nearly on the line, where 
they erected an observatoiy. The other four, in like manner fur- 
nished and with commissary, soldiers ancl servants, proceeded to 
the west, end of the temporary line, near to w"hicb, on one of the 
highest of the Fish creek hills, they also erected a rude observa- 
tory. At these stations each party, during six long Aveeks of days 
and nights preceding the autumnal equinox of 1784, continued to 
make observations of the eclipses of Jupiter's moons and other 
celestial phenomena, for the purposes of determining their respec- 
tive meridians and latitude and adjusting their time-pieces. This 
done, two of each party come together, and they find their stations 
were apart twenty minutes and one and an eighth seconds. The "Wil- 
mington station was one hundred and fourteen (four pole) chains 
and thirteen links west of the Delaware. Knowing that twenty 
minutes of time were equal to five degrees of longitude, they make 
allowance for said one hundred and fourteen chains and thirteen 
links, and for the said one and an eighth seconds, (equal, they say, 
to nineteen chains and ninety-six links,) and upon these data they 
shorten back on. the" line to twenty minutes from the Delaware, and 
fix the south-west corner of the State by setting up a square unlet- 
tered white-oak post, around which they rear a conical pyramid of 
stones, "and they are there unto this day."" 

There was no re-tracing of the line from the north-west corner 
of Maryland; nor was it measured from the end of Mason and Dix- 
on's running to the cairn^ corner. All that was done was to connect 
these two points by opening vistas over the most remarkable heights 
and planting posts on some of them, at irregular distances, marked 
with P. and V, on the sides, each letter facing the State of which it 
is the initial. The corner was guarded by two oak trees, with six 
notches in each, as watchers. It could not be too well secured; 
for it, and the twenty-two miles from the war path, cost the State 
£1455 specie, equal to nearly §4000, besides six dollars per day to 



'*•''(" the Report in 10 ]';v. Archives, o7o, 074. 



68 VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 

eacli of the " astronomers !"i- Their commissary was Col. Andrew 
Porter, father of ex-Governor David R. Porter. Being, at the 
western end, some "thirty miles from any settlements," his duties 
were exceedingly onerous. And here, near the end of 1784, ends 
the history of Mason and Dixon's line. 

The next year (1785) the western line, to the Ohio, and some 
forty or fifty miles beyond it, was run and marked in like manner, 
with the addition of deadening the trees in the vistas between the 
hills. The Pennsylvania artists were Col. Andrew Porter and 
David Rittenhouse; those of Virginia, Joseph Neville and Andrew 
EUicott, the latter acting for Pennsylvania north of the Ohio, where 
Virginia pretensions ended by reason of her cession of the North- 
west Territory to the United States in 1784. It was completed to 
Lake Erie, in 1786, by Col. Porter and Col. Alexander M'Clean. 
Its length is about one hundred and fifty-eight miles. 

Thus honorably and successfully has Pennsylvania borne herself 
in all her boundary contests; never encroaching upon her neighbors' 
rights, yet always gaining by their intrusions upon her territory. 
Her uniformly calm, patient, persevering defensive policy, begun by 
her Proprietors and perpetuated in the Commonwealth, has added 
one-fourth to the area of her chartered limits. Setting out in her 
controversial career upon the maxim: "Be just and fear not," the 
fiercest assaults never provoked her to retaliate, nor did the boldest 
invasions ever compel her to yield. And although it would be un- 
kind, if not unjust, to accuse her invaders of willful aggression, we 
may safely say of them, as did Lady Macbeth of her "thane :" 

" Wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win-" 

In the ultimate accessions of both valuable territory and valuable 
population, with which Pennsylvania was compensated for the 
troubles they gave her, may be read an instructive lesson to all the 
States, in the present and all coming time — never to encroach upon 
any of the rights of a co-equal Sovereignty. The redress of indi- 
vidual wrongs may be deferred to a future state of being, but the 
retributions which communities incur admit of no such postpone- 
ment : " in these cases 

We still have judgment here ; that we but teach 
Bloody instructions, vhich being taught, return 
To plague the inventor." 



1^ They lived well. Among their "accommodations," ordered by the State, were 60 
gallons spirits, 20 gallons brandy, 40 gallons Madeira wine, 200 pounds loaf sugar, a 
small keo' of lime [lemon] juice, G pound.-i tea, 20 pounds coffee, 30 pounds chocolate, 
20 p'^'Uiids Scotch hr.rloy, &c. 



